


The Other Side of the Coin

by philoda



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Supernatural, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angels in the MCU, Angst, Crossover, Emotional Baggage, Family, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Reconciliation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 01:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2368820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/philoda/pseuds/philoda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crossing realities isn't something that can be done willy-nilly. When Gabriel threw himself across the dimensions, he left a trail behind, and someone noticed and followed. This time, Gabriel isn't alone in his universe. Sequel inspired by The Last Archangel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Joel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inukagome15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inukagome15/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Last Archangel](https://archiveofourown.org/works/888704) by [inukagome15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inukagome15/pseuds/inukagome15). 



He floated through space. All was silent around him, and he rode on a current of dark energy and watched as unfamiliar galaxies and star formations swept past him. Days, weeks, and months blended together, but he could still barely find the strength to lift his wings, so he floated in the current and rested. It seemed that he had landed in a small stream, for soon it joined another and another, becoming wider at each turn, and he realized that it was not a stream at all, but a cosmic tree that spanned the universe. It was fascinating. The pathways through space were lit like lines of lightning, bright to his eyes, and as he expanded his senses, he could feel the different worlds connected to its branches. He glimpsed them as he swept by—a world locked in snow and ice, another green with grassy plains. One sparkled with magic and a rainbow bridge, and then…

He righted himself. In the middle of the trunk was a marble of blue and green, filled with life. This was the one.

Earth.

Not the Earth that he’d known, but Earth nonetheless. He stretched his wings and flew.

Down there among the mortals, the echo of his brother’s Grace sang to him. It had been singing to him all this time, the only one that he could hear. The chorus of the Host ever-present in his mind was silent in this universe, except for the faint echo of Gabriel’s Grace. Like the distant flicker of a lighthouse, it had guided him forward. Always forward. And now, he was about to reach the shore.

When he landed, it was in the middle of a crater, and he gasped as he sensed the utter devastation around him. Nothing lived within a fifteen mile radius. He knelt and touched the ground. The remnant of Gabriel’s Grace pulsed beneath his fingers. It permeated the place.

“Oh brother, what have you done?” he murmured in dismay.

No wonder his sense of Gabriel had been so diffused. He had felt traces of it all over the universe as he traveled through the tree. He could feel even more everywhere on this planet, but it was in this crater that it was most concentrated. And yet…Gabriel wasn’t _here_. Only the echo of his Grace.

He bowed his head. Was he…too late?

A whisper of Grace touched the edge of his senses, and he looked up. At the very center of the crater, he saw a single daffodil, its colors vibrant against the lifeless earth. His breath caught in his throat. Could it be? With a flutter of wings he stood before it and crouched down. He slowly reached out, his hand trembling, and then he dared to touch it.

His brother’s Grace exploded from the frail flower and Gabriel’s memories were pouring into him, bright and fiery and threatening to consume him even as his own Grace responded and resonated with it. He gasped, flinging it out and away as he shielded himself. Gabriel’s last will had been intent on nothing but destruction, and he shuddered as he folded his wings close to himself and inspected them. Even from that small drop of Grace, he had still been singed. There was a reason why Archangels were considered Heaven’s ultimate weapons, and Gabriel had unleashed the full might of his wrath on this place. No, even more than that. He had…completely emptied himself, in order to save the world. In order to save the humans. From the Leviathans.

He shuddered again. There had been so many.

He trembled as he pulled himself together. He was tired. He had already depleted himself, following the trail that his brother left behind through the dimensions. He had recovered a little on his journey to Earth, but it was not enough. He sorely missed the comforting voices of the Host. He had never been so completely cut off from the rest of his brethren. And, spurred by his relief at finding a small piece of his brother, he had foolishly touched Gabriel’s Grace without inspecting it more closely. Without a vessel, it had latched onto him, seeking the closest familiar thing, and drained him of the little energy he’d managed to recover.

He sighed as he rose and once more stood before the manifestation of Gabriel’s Grace. It now took the form of a young tree, its leaves green and vibrant, spreading beneath the midday sun. Well. At least now it no longer looked as if a stiff wind would blow it over. He supposed that he could leave it there for now. He needed to locate his brother’s vessel first and gather up the other small pieces of Grace scattered all over this planet. 

This was not what he had hoped to find after all these years. When he saw Gabriel again, he thought grimly, he was going to give his brother a piece of his mind.

* * *

It had been months, and Gabriel’s condition hadn’t improved. It was maddening, and even though Thor was still optimistic, Loki was starting to despair that Gabriel would ever regain his memories. He still saw him frequently since Thor loved to linger on Midgard despite his new kingly duties, but it was disturbing to see him so…vulnerable. So human. He’d taken to his children well after a while and seemed at ease with his human friends, but his interactions with the rest of the Avengers were still awkward, and whenever Loki talked to him, it left him feeling stilted.

It was maddening, and there wasn’t anything Loki could do to fix it. And he was frustrated, because he knew that Gabriel was still in there, buried somewhere beneath Tony Stark.

So when the call came from S.H.I.E.L.D. about new activity at the crater, Loki almost forgot to take the Avengers who were with him (Clint Barton and Natasha Romanov) in his eagerness to get to the Helicarrier, and his distraction showed itself when the mortals hurled their breakfast out on the Helicarrier’s deck.

“Damn it, Loki! Did you do that on purpose?” Barton growled, wiping his mouth with a paper towel that some hapless agent had brought him. Next to him, Romanov groaned and held a hand to her stomach.

Loki gave him a disdainful glance. How disgusting. “Spare me your complaints. If my mode of transport is too difficult for you, find your own next time.”

Nick Fury was waiting impatiently for them on the bridge, and as soon as they crossed the threshold and the door slid shut behind them, he spoke.

“Good. The others are on their way, but since Loki’s here we don’t need to wait. Agent Hill, brief them.”

Maria Hill gave the tablet in her hands a few taps and the monitors flickered, each showing different video feeds from the cameras that S.H.I.E.L.D. had kept trained on the site of the warehouse ever since Gabriel had leveled it. “This just came in about twenty minutes ago.”

“What…is that a person?” Romanov squinted. The ground level cameras showed a man standing in the middle of the crater. His hair was dark blond and styled in a short military buzz-cut, and he wore nondescript beige pants, a white shirt, and a brown leather jacket. He crouched down as if he was touching something, and then the cameras blew out into static. At the same time, the satellite feed showed a burst of white light spreading out from the center of the crater.

“We haven’t been able to identify the individual, but the energy signature matches that of Gabriel’s.” Hill turned to Loki. “Since you won’t be harmed by Gabriel’s true form, we’d like you to go down there and check out what’s going on.”

Loki nodded. He took the offered earpiece and camera and a few seconds later he was at the crater site. He blinked. There was a small tree, about twice his height. “Well, this is…new.”

“ _Talk to me, Loki._ ” Fury’s voice demanded. Loki pointed the camera at the tree.

“There’s a tree.”

“ _We can see that._ ” The man’s irritation was clear through the earpiece and Loki smirked. “ _Is it…angelic?_ ”

“I am certain it is,” Loki said as he circled it with wary steps. He could feel Gabriel’s power pulsing throughout its branches and leaves. “There was nothing when I was last here. He left nothing alive. This tree…I can feel his power within it.”

“ _Can you retrieve it? We might be able to restore his memories._ ”

Loki hesitated. He had been able to find and return Gabriel’s consciousness when they had been trying to revive him on the Helicarrier’s deck, so perhaps he could do it again. But the power within the tree felt different. It was…more raw, more potent. “I can try,” he said finally.

“ _Alright. Be careful._ ”

Loki chuckled. “Is that concern I hear?”

An exasperated huff answered him. “ _Just do it._ ”

Loki smirked, but he let it drop from his face as he reached his hand out. Gabriel had called his power Grace, and Loki was certain that this was what lay within the tree. He cast his senses out and probed it with a touch of magic.

He was answered with a searing wave of heat and light.

“Argh!” Loki hissed and recoiled instinctively. His right sleeve was burnt to tatters, and the skin of his arm blistered all the way up to his elbow. He hadn’t even physically touched the thing. He was extremely glad that he’d had the foresight not to, or he would have certainly been obliterated.

“ _Loki?…-ki!_ ” There was a chorus of voices on the other end, but the connection crackled with static. The blast had predictably done a bit of damage to the electronic equipment.

“ _…the feed…-k to me!_ ” 

“ _…hear us?_ ”

“ _Loki? Hello?_ ”

Loki sighed. The audio connection wavered and stabilized, but the camera was now completely useless. He tossed it away. Midgardian technology was so unreliable. “Yes, I can hear you.” He inspected his arm, wincing as he tore off what was left of his sleeve.

“ _Loki, are you well?_ ” Thor’s voice joined in. He had arrived, then.

“Hello, brother,” Loki greeted with a grimace. “I am fine, more or less.”

“ _What happened?_ ”

“It responded to my probing…violently,” Loki answered, lips thinning. He surveyed the tree again. Nothing seemed to have changed; the power within it had returned to dormancy, but he had no desire to touch it again. “I do not think I will be able to retrieve Gabriel’s power. When I touched it, I could sense its intent. It wishes nothing but destruction.” He lowered his voice. “I was almost killed. I dare not touch it again.”

“That would be wise.”

Loki whirled around, barely managing to bite back a curse. He had not sensed anyone approach, but before him stood the man who had appeared in the recordings. His heart pounded, and he fingered the dagger hidden in the sleeve of his good hand, readying himself to defend against this new being should he prove to be a threat—for he was certainly no mere human.

“Who are you?” he asked tersely.

“ _Loki? Who is there?_ ” In his earpiece, Fury's voice was as tense as a bowstring.

“The one who was here before me,” Loki answered, eyes still fixed on the man.

The man’s gaze strayed to the right of Loki’s head where his earpiece was. “I am Joel,” the man answered simply. “Who are you?”

“I am Loki of Asgard,” Loki said stiffly. He studied the man. There was something…otherly, shining through his eyes, and his aura felt similar to Gabriel’s. “You are an angel.” Loki’s eyes widened as he came to the realization.

“That I am,” the man inclined his head. He took a step forward. “Where is Gabriel?”

Loki narrowed his eyes. “You know Gabriel?” he asked, wanting to stall for time so that he could discreetly leave himself a backdoor to escape if this new angel turned out to be hostile. Gabriel had mentioned on several occasions that his siblings had the tendency to smite first and ask questions later, and Loki very much preferred not to be wiped from existence.

“Of course, he is my brother,” Joel said dismissively. “Now, answer my question. Where is Gabriel?”

“What do you want with him?”

“I wish to speak to him.”

Loki clenched his good hand into a fist as he finished weaving his spell. He snuck quietly behind Joel. “And why should I trust that you will not do anything else?”

Joel’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You are trying my patience. I did not follow my brother across countless dimensions so that you can play games with me.” He raised a hand, and with a flick, he shattered the illusion. The burst of energy swept through Loki, rattling his bones, and he fell to the ground stunned. In his ear he could hear Thor shouting, telling him to _hold on_ and _he was coming_ , the same as he could hear Fury barking after his brother to _wait_ before a peal of thunder cut him off.

Joel turned to face him. “You will tell me where he is, Loki of Asgard.” Though he had yet to raise his voice, the angel’s tone held a dangerous edge.

“Why should I when I know nothing of your intentions?” Loki panted, feeling his heart pound and his chest constrict with fear as the angel advanced on him. He had assumed that Joel was less in power than Gabriel—Gabriel had said that he was the only Archangel left, after all—but he had not expected to still be outclassed so completely. He hoped his brother would fly swiftly.

“You think I would harm him?”

“It is not the first time we have met someone from your world other than Gabriel.”

“You have met others?” Surprise and hope flickered across Joel’s face. “There are other angels here? But no. There cannot be. I have sensed no one else.” He frowned once more. “Why do you deceive me?”

“I did not lie!” Loki hissed. “When we met Lilith, she had nothing but ill will.”

“Lilith,” Joel murmured. “That is not surprising, but Lilith is not an angel, and she was corrupted long ago. I assure you, I am different.”

“Your assurance means nothing. What proof do you have?” Loki gritted his teeth.

Joel considered him for a moment, then he held his hand out in front of him and exhaled. Something brilliantly white flowed out of his mouth and settled in his palm. “Since I arrived here, I have been searching for and collecting Gabriel’s Grace. It is torn to pieces, and what I have gathered is nothing compared to what he once had.” Joel stared down at his hand. His expression was solemn, and even sad. “I saw what he did here. To destroy the Leviathans, he nearly destroyed himself. If I do not return his Grace to him soon, he will die.”

Loki watched the light shimmering between Joel’s fingers. His earpiece was silent, and he knew that they were all waiting for one thing—for Thor to arrive. He had to buy time. “He was in good health the last I saw him,” he said.

“But an angel without his Grace…”

“He was human. He had been human,” Loki shrugged. Thunder rumbled distantly and he hid a sigh of relief. “I do not know if he is still an angel now, but he lived as a human for many years.”

“Human?” Joel asked, surprise again showing on his face, but he did not continue. They both glanced up at the darkening sky. A bolt of lightning struck mere feet in front of them and set Loki’s ears ringing and his hair on its ends, and when the light and thunder faded Thor was towering over him, hammer raised.

“What took you so long?” Loki snapped.

“I flew as fast as I could,” Thor replied tersely, slightly out of breath. His expression darkened when he saw Loki’s burnt arm. “He hurt you?”

“No,” Loki got to his feet, though Thor hovered protectively in front of him. “This was from when I tried to touch the tree. If I hadn’t had the sense to probe it first with my magic, I would have been destroyed.”

As one, they turned to face the angel. Joel had been studying Thor through their short exchange. “Who are you?” he asked curiously.

“I am Thor, King of Asgard, Protector of the Nine Realms,” Thor stated, gripping his hammer tightly. “If you wish to do harm to any inhabitants of Midgard, you will have me to deal with.”

“Your distrust is unwarranted,” Joel regarded him coolly. “I do not wish to fight, though I doubt that you can defeat me.”

Thor bristled at Joel’s implied superiority, and he set himself in an aggressive stance. “What is your purpose here?”

“As I have told Loki, I merely wish to find Gabriel, my brother. He is not well. I can sense the scattered remnants of his Grace all over the planet.” Joel stated, holding up the handful of Grace. “I can help him. I can gather them together and return them to him.”

Loki put a hand on Thor’s shoulder. “He seems sincere. We should not be quick to come to blows.”

“ _Loki, are you sure we can trust him?_ ” Fury’s voice crackled through the earpiece again.

Loki stared at the angel for a moment, and Thor looked at him expectantly as well. He did not know if he could trust Joel, but he knew that the sadness he saw earlier was genuine. And at the very least…

“If he wished to kill me, he could have done so easily. Even with my brother here, I do not think we can win,” Loki admitted, though he did not care to. He took a steadying breath. “We shall see what he does.”

Joel inclined his head. “I am glad that we have come to an understanding.”

“Can you retrieve Gabriel’s power from that tree?” Loki gestured with his good hand.

“I should be able,” Joel turned, striding toward it. Thor and Loki followed, but he motioned them back. “Do not come closer,” he warned. “I sense that you are not human, but an Archangel’s Grace is not a thing to be trifled with. Even I was burned when I tried to touch it the first time.”

“But can you do it?”

“I should be able,” Joel repeated. “I have managed to gather some other pieces. It should recognize me.” He stood beneath the tree and reached out hesitantly. Loki saw him set his jaw, and he braced himself as Joel pressed his hand to the trunk.

A pulse of white light swept through the air. Loki cringed, but this time he was left unharmed, though his injured arm still throbbed and his blistered skin still tingled. Thor stepped back from in front of him, lowering the cape that he’d used to shield them both. Beneath the tree, Joel’s entire frame glowed. He muttered in the strange but powerful language that Loki knew angels used, and behind him, Loki saw six gigantic wings spreading out. Joel’s true form was smaller than that of Gabriel’s, but it was still fierce, and Loki broke into a cold sweat despite the warmth of the day. He had posed absolutely no threat to the angel.

The tree itself glowed now. Something shifted beneath his feet and both Thor and Loki looked down. The ground vibrated and Loki felt the energy that was lingering within the crater respond, rushing in a wave of white light toward the tree in the center. Thor grabbed ahold of him and Mjölnir pulled them both into the air just as the energy converged and Joel’s human form was swallowed up in a sea of light. The audio connection in his earpiece sputtered out.

The light slowly faded, and Thor returned them to the ground. Loki gaped at the tree, now a withered husk. There was no trace of Gabriel’s power left in it.

“What did you do?” Thor demanded.

Joel seemed to be slightly out of breath, and his shoulders slumped with weariness that was not there before, but when he spoke, his voice remained even and strong. “I retrieved Gabriel’s Grace, as you asked. Now, I wish to go to my brother. Tell me where he is.”

“You will restore his power to him then?” Loki asked.

“Of course,” Joel said with a frown, as if affronted by his question.

He and Thor looked at each other. “We do not have much choice,” Thor said in a low voice, “I wish to see him healed.”

“I as well,” Loki agreed. It was their only chance to see Gabriel restored. He turned to Joel, offering his hand. “I shall take you to him.”


	2. Reunion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joel meets the Avengers, who don't really know what to make of him. He also has a little talk with Gabriel.

Joel was intrigued by the two Norse gods who had confronted him at the crater. He’d heard about them back in his own reality, but had never met them, so he was not sure if they were different from the Thor and Loki of his world.

He had just retrieved another piece of Gabriel’s Grace from somewhere underground in Germany when he felt the tree flare up for a brief moment. He’d cloaked himself immediately and flew back to the crater, only to find a very strange man. He had not felt human, and there was the buzz of magic about him, magic that Joel had never seen before, so he had waited for a moment to observe what the man would do. Gabriel’s Grace had burned Loki, and although it was only a minuscule amount—less even than when it had lashed out at him—Joel was impressed that Loki had survived. He had revealed himself when he deemed Loki not a threat.

He was surprised at how fiercely protective both Thor and Loki were of his brother. Though he found their constant inquiries irritating, inwardly he was amused. It was just like Gabriel to befriend another user of illusions and tricks. When he had arrived at their base of operations (and it was quite an impressive piece of human engineering) he was further puzzled by the humans that greeted them. Why would his brother induce such loyalties in these people? The Gabriel he knew would have found it beneath him to mingle so much with mortals.

Now, he stood in a large conference room with several electronic monitors as all of its occupants stared at him with scrutiny. He looked back at them impassively. The dark-skinned man with a patch covering one eye—Nicholas Fury—was apparently the Director of a government organization called S.H.I.E.L.D. Joel studied his soul. He had a sharp mind, a strong sense of duty, and a ruthless streak that could rival any angel’s. He scowled at Joel with suspicion clearly displayed on his face. Joel was not impressed, either by his scowl or his status.

Aside from Fury and the Asgardians, There were two other men and two women with him, all of them Fury’s subordinates—Clinton Barton, Phillip Coulson, Natasha Romanov, and Maria Hill. Joel let his gaze linger on Barton and Romanov. He could not sense them, as he could the others. Gabriel must have warded them, though he saw no sigils on their persons. Maria Hill studied him with eyes as sharp as steel and Joel met them as she narrowed her gaze.  _I’m not intimidated by you,_  her soul spoke clearly to him. Phillip Coulson stood silently by her side. He held himself unobtrusively, but with quiet strength, and his soul was a bright and steadfast light.

 _You’ve found yourself some interesting souls, brother,_  Joel thought with some amusement.

“So,” Fury began. “Joel, is it? You’re another angel?”

“I am,” Joel replied.

“And you have Gabriel’s power?”

Joel inclined his head minutely.

“Where is it?”

“Safe within me.” Joel placed his hand on his chest, where he could feel Gabriel’s Grace even now. Though diminished, it was still difficult to hold, and it burned him even as it warmed him. If he had not wrapped his own Grace around Gabriel’s, his vessel would have burnt out.

“You…swallowed it?” Natasha Romanov asked in alarm. Even Loki and Thor turned to regard him with wide eyes.

“I have no vessel to contain it other than my own,” Joel replied mildly, not comprehending why they were so repulsed by the idea.

“You gonna give it back to him?” Barton spoke sharply from his place next to Romanov.

“Of course,” Joel probed the minds of those he could sense, frowning as he read the surface of their thoughts. “You thought I would take his power for myself?”

“Another angel did something like that, maybe you’ve heard of it,” Fury said, his scowl deepening. “Opened up Purgatory and swallowed the souls inside because he needed some juice. We had to deal with the fallout.”

“Ah,” Joel sighed. He understood now. “Castiel did do that, misguided as he was.”

It pained him to even think of it. Joel had been horrified to learn what his little brother had done, and had hid himself when Castiel had returned to Heaven, storming through its ranks to root out anyone still loyal to Raphael. Even though he had been repentant in the end, Joel was not sure if he could ever forgive him.

“I assure you I have no such intentions. I only wish to see my brother healed.” He frowned at Fury. “I have yet to see him. Where is he?”

Fury’s distrust hadn’t abated, but he tilted his head to the door. “Follow me. He should be arriving in a few minutes.”

They filed out. Joel kept a sedate pace behind Fury, but the others gave him a wide berth, especially the humans, who continued to shoot him wary glances. Joel ignored them in favor of casting his senses out. If Gabriel was arriving soon, he should sense his approach, though Joel could not see how he was in any condition to fly. They stepped out onto the Helicarrier’s deck. The mortals each donned a helmet so that they could breathe in the thin air. Joel raised an eyebrow at the agent who offered him one, and she hastily retracted her hand. He had no use for such things.

Fury put a hand to the side of his helmet. The radio headset within it crackled, and Joel could feel the fluctuations in the electromagnetic field as it received its message. He easily picked up the words.

“ _Director Fury? We’re approaching now._ ”

“Understood,” Fury nodded, turning his head toward the sky. The rumble of a jet’s engines grew louder as it approached them rapidly. It circled around once, slowing down before descending on the runway, blasting hot air in all directions. Joel frowned as he searched inside. He did not sense Gabriel. In fact, he sensed no one at all. What?

He had his answer when four men stepped out. Like Romanov and Barton, they were warded. He searched each of their faces. If Gabriel was among them, he could not tell.

“Yo, Nicky!” called a man with dark eyes, dark brown hair and a goatee, and Joel instantly knew that he was the one. He was still hidden from his senses, but that smirk could not be anything but Gabriel. “If you wanted to join my family vacation, you could’ve just asked.”

Fury had a look of complete exasperation on his face. “Not the time, Stark.” Stark? Joel filed the name away. “I didn’t call you here for no reason. Get inside and we’ll talk.”

“Fine, sheesh,” Gabriel—Stark—rolled his eyes, before looking curiously at Joel. “Who’s this?”

“We’ll talk  _inside_ ,” Fury said through his teeth.

Throughout their walk back inside the Helicarrier, Joel kept his eyes trained on Stark. He probed him every way he could, but it was like he had hit a blank wall. The spark of life that a soul normally gave off was absent—completely nonexistent to his senses. If Joel could not physically see or hear the man in front of him, he would not have known that he was there at all.

His probing drew Loki’s attention, however, and the Asgardian inserted himself between them.

“Stop it,” Loki hissed lowly, and Joel looked away as the others tossed them questioning glances.

When they arrived back in the room, the man who was supposed to be his brother was watching him warily. “Dude, quit staring at me,” he crossed his arms. “You’re creeping me out.” Joel ignored him, and Stark shot him an irritated glare before turning to Fury. “So what’s going on? You called us all in really suddenly. You usually don’t assemble the team unless it’s something big.”

Fury did not answer immediately. He touched some controls on the wall and the windows turned opaque, then he tapped the tablet in his hand. The monitors around the room flared up and a few holograms appeared over the table, showing images of the crater. Joel saw himself crouching down to touch Gabriel’s Grace for the first time. On another monitor, a shaky video showed the small tree that had appeared there later.

“We picked up activity at the crater,” Fury said, nodding at the images, then he tilted his head toward Joel. “This guy was the one who caused it.”

All eyes turned to him.

Fury crossed his arms. “Well, introduce yourself,  _angel_.”

There were brief gasps around the room. Joel turned, letting his gaze sweep over each of them. “I am Joel,” he declared. “I have traveled across all of spacetime in search of my brother.” His eyes landed on Stark, who took a step back.

“Me?” he asked.

Joel’s heart sank. “Do you not remember me, Gabriel?”

Stark looked to Fury uncertainly. “I…”

“He doesn’t remember,” said a blond and heavily built man. “He hasn’t remembered since he destroyed the Leviathans. We’ve tried to tell him, but he doesn’t remember who he is…who he was.”

Joel stepped close to his brother and stared, unsure of what to say. It was wrong. So wrong. His brother was not supposed to be this frail and weak, not even knowing himself. He was supposed to be the strong one. The Archangel. Not so…human.

“Brother…” He reached out a hand and touched the side of Gabriel’s head, letting just a trace of Grace seep through. “ _Do you not remember me, Gabriel?_ ” he asked again in Enochian.

Gabriel gasped as his eyes lit up with Grace-light, but it faded instantly. He heard the humans cry out, and he turned around to find them blinking and their faces tight with pain.

“Give us a warning next time!”  Barton exclaimed.

 _Ah, foolish of me_ , Joel thought. “I apologize. I had forgotten how fragile humans can be. I shall be more careful.”

“Make sure to do that,” Fury growled, rubbing the eye not covered by his patch. “Well?”

Gabriel was looking at Joel strangely. “I…I know you,” he stammered, “but I don’t…” He looked down with a confused expression.

“This is most excellent!” Thor boomed, striding across the room to him. He clapped his large hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “Can you remember anything else?”

The whole room waited in anticipation. “No,” Gabriel shook his head. “I…he’s familiar. I  _know_  him, but I don’t…I don’t remember.”

“Hey, Tony, it’s ok. This is still progress,” said the blond man. Tony? Joel frowned. His brother seemed to use a lot of names. Then again, it was just like him to do so. The blond man turned to him. “Can you…can you help him? Make him remember?”

“I should be able,” Joel nodded. Though Gabriel hadn’t recognized his name, he had recognized his Grace. It was a good sign. “I have his Grace, what I have managed to collect, at least. Once I have restored it to him he should regain himself.”

“Then do so at once,” Thor said impatiently.

Joel gave him a critical look. “It is not safe with so many mortals present.”

“We’ll leave,” said the blond man immediately.

“No. I shall take him elsewhere.” Joel shook his head before turning to address Fury. “I assume you do not want your equipment destroyed.” He gestured at the monitors.

“That would be appreciated,” Fury said dryly. “There’s a sealed room you can use. Agent Hill will take you to it.”

“Very well,” Joel nodded. “Come, brother,” he said, gently guiding a still dazed Gabriel to the door. Joel paused when he realized that Thor and Loki were both following them.

“We’re coming with you.” Loki’s tone brooked no argument. Joel frowned at them, then at Loki’s arm, still burnt. Loki glared back at him defiantly. “We’ve seen his true form. We’re not  _mortal_.”

Joel turned away. What an obstinate duo. “Do as you wish.”

* * *

Tony let himself be pushed to a windowless room on the Helicarrier by this…this new…guy. He’d called himself Joel and said that he was his brother, but Tony didn’t remember ever knowing anyone named Joel. And when he’d touched him…

He’d felt like fire had spread through him. It was warmth and light and familiar and _home_ , and his head filled with music. For once, he wasn’t alone, because Joel was with him. And he knew him. A part of himself sang at Joel’s touch, but it faded so quickly. He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know what to think. When Joel drew his hand away Tony was left with an aching sense of emptiness, and he hated the way that his mind had fallen silent.

But for the life of him, he couldn’t remember.

“I know you.” He stared as hard as he could at Joel’s face, trying to place it in his memories. “But why don’t I remember?”

“You will, brother,” Joel’s faint smile was reassuring. “You will.”

Maria Hill closed the door and only Thor and Loki were left with them. They’d called him his friend, and over the last few months Tony had come to think of them as such, but he remembered nothing about them either. It made conversations awkward, and they insisted on calling him Gabriel. He’d heard the story from Jarvis after he’d woken up but he still wasn’t sure if he completely believed it, and thinking of himself as an Archangel was just…weird.

But as he looked at Joel now, he thought that maybe it wasn’t so weird after all.

Joel sighed. “Let us begin.”

He grasped Tony by the shoulders and breathed out. White light streamed out of his mouth and into Tony and he stifled a cry as he felt fire again spreading through him, a million times more intense than before. Joel’s voice shook the room, blowing out half the lights in a shower of sparks.

“ ** _Remember, brother. You are Gabriel the Messenger. Remember._** ”

And Gabriel _remembered_. The eons he’d lived. The dawn of Creation. The Fall. Leaving Heaven. Lucifer driving his sword into him.

Regaining himself in Afghanistan. Giving bodies to Dummy, Butterfingers, You, and Jarvis. The Avengers. Loki, Thor, Steve, Natasha, Clint, Bruce. Tracking the Tesseract and flinging Leviathans across space and tearing himself apart in that bloody warehouse.

Opening his eyes, Gabriel stretched his wings. It hurt, and they were torn and tattered, but it felt _amazing_. In front of him, Joel smiled. “Welcome back, brother,” he said softly.

Then he punched Gabriel, hard.

Blinking, Gabriel stumbled back. He stretched his sore jaw as his lips healed. Joel was panting heavily, held back by both Loki and Thor. He flexed the hand he used to punch, and Gabriel could hear the bones crack. It was healing, but too slowly.

His foolish brother had barely had enough energy to contain his Grace, and he’d poured even more in when he’d given it back. Gabriel felt his Grace settle within him. It was so little, compared to what he’d had before, but he’d take it.

“It’s ok, Thor, Loki. It’s fine.” Gabriel waved a hand. They looked at him uncertainly.

“You have remembered?” Loki asked, voice hopeful.

Gabriel smiled. “Yeah. Everything.”

“Excellent!” Thor beamed, letting go of Joel and enveloping him in a hug that would’ve crushed a normal human. “I shall let the others know!” he declared before throwing open the door and striding out.

Gabriel sighed as he gave Joel a once-over. “Should’ve done that earlier if you wanted to beat me up, bro,” he chuckled, wiping away the blood at the corner of his mouth.

“As weak as you are now, I can still take you,” Joel retorted.

Gabriel’s mouth twitched into a wry smile. “True that. I suppose I deserved it.” He looked down at his shoes. He could vaguely sense the others approaching them, but it was so muddled. He really was weak. “Why are you here?”

Joel stared at him. “I should be asking you that,” he said quietly. Furiously. “You left. You _left_. When our brothers were killing each other, you left, without so much as a by-your-leave, and the first news I hear of you in millennia is that you’ve been killed by Lucifer, and I had to hear it from the _Winchesters_.” He spat the last word out and Gabriel winced. “So imagine my surprise when I felt your presence in Heaven. I wasn’t about to let you disappear again without some explanations.”

Gabriel watched him somberly. While Joel had been speaking, the others had arrived. They all seemed ecstatic to see that he was himself again, though they looked uncertainly at Joel, having caught his words.

Gabriel sighed. This was family business, and they didn’t need to see that. He turned to them.

“I need a moment alone with my brother,” he said quietly.

Thor made to protest, but Loki stopped him with a raised hand and a shake of his head. Gabriel gave an appreciative smile and Loki nodded, leading the way out of the room. The others followed slowly, casting him concerned glances over their shoulders.

When they were alone, Gabriel found that he didn’t know where to begin. It had been so long since he’d seen Joel. The last time that they had spoken to each other, Julius Caesar wasn’t even Emperor of Rome yet.

“It was you then,” he said at last. “You were the one who clung to my wings when I was leaving.” At the time, he’d been too distracted by the Leviathans and squeezing himself through space, and whoever it was hadn’t made it back with him, so he hadn’t given it much thought.

Joel nodded. “I lost my grip,” he said darkly. “But I could still sense you. I followed your trail and found myself here.”

Gabriel let his head fall back as he breathed out sharply. “You’re an _idiot_. You could’ve lost yourself.” One didn’t just _travel_ through dimensions. Even for him, it hadn’t been possible without the Tesseract. Joel could have been easily trapped in the non-spaces between, and if he had, he would have been lost forever.

But Joel gave him a scathing look. Okay, maybe he didn’t have the right to say that.

Gabriel sighed in resignation. “I can’t send you back.”

“I know,” Joel said. “But it matters not. I will not go back.”

Gabriel’s lips quirked. “Taking a page out of my book? And here you are lecturing me.”

“You weren’t there.” Joel didn’t find it amusing at all. He glowered and his anger made what was left of the lights flicker. Another one blew out and Gabriel’s smirk slid off his face. “You weren’t there, Gabriel. You weren’t there to see what Castiel had become. You weren’t there to stop him. He was mad with power. Declared himself God.” Gabriel flinched. That was blasphemy of the highest order. Little Castiel had done that? “He killed Raphael _so easily_ , and he killed so many of us. _So many of us_. And I could do _nothing_.”

The pain in Joel’s voice stabbed at his heart. Joel was always the most gentle of them. He hated to see his brothers fight, perhaps even more than Gabriel did. Whenever any one of them got into a scrape, Joel was always there to patch them up, and he knew that he and Castiel had been close. It must have killed him to see Castiel lose his mind to power. Gabriel didn’t know what to say for a moment, but then he remembered when he last saw his little brother, standing shoulder to shoulder with the Winchesters against Dick Roman.

“He came to his senses in the end.”

“Tell that to Hananiah. Tell that to Gamaliel. Tell that to all of our siblings and all of the humans he killed.” Gabriel sucked in a breath. Hananiah, Gamaliel, and Joel had been some of his closest. He remembered teaching them, remembered how they followed him and paid attention to everything he did. Joel went on, “Perhaps you are able to forgive him, but I cannot. I will not return. Not unless you do as well.”

Forgiveness. Gabriel huffed. Was this why he’d been brought back, to learn how to forgive? He’d been trying, but it was _hard_. And Joel…Joel was in the same boat he was in now.

“I don’t know if I _can_ go back, even with my full powers restored.”

“Then I will stay.” Joel stepped toward him. “Let me stay with you.” He all but pleaded.

And how could Gabriel refuse?

He took his brother in his arms and embraced him. “ _Do you even need to ask?_ ” he said in Enochian. Joel was stiff, unused to the human gesture, but he relaxed when Gabriel embraced him with his Grace as well, wrapping his own around his brother's. Nothing showed on the face of Joel’s vessel, but Gabriel could feel the heavy grief that his brother was carrying, and the way that Joel’s true form leaned into his warmed him from the inside. “ _Stay with me, and I’ll teach you. Just like the old times._ ”

“ _Truly, brother?_ ”

“ _Yes,_ ” Gabriel pulled back, merriment and a hint of mischief glinting in his eyes. “ _I’ve learned quite a few things during my time here. I think you will as well._ ”

* * *

Steve tried not to fidget as he waited with Fury and the rest of the team back in the conference room. They’d all felt it—shortly after Joel had taken Tony away, the entire place had shook, and alarms had gone off everywhere on the Helicarrier. It didn’t seem to have done any damage, fortunately, though Steve wondered if it would have been better if they’d done whatever angel magic they were doing off the Helicarrier.

The new angel had been good on his word, if the brief glimpse that he’d had of Tony was anything to go by, but he still wanted to make sure that his friend was okay. He understood why Gabriel would want some privacy though. He obviously had some history with Joel, and if human family feuds were trouble, Steve didn’t want to imagine how much worse angelic ones could be.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to wait long. About fifteen minutes later the door hissed open to reveal a widely grinning Tony, and Steve straightened up from where he was leaning against the conference room table. Tony sauntered into the room with Joel at his heels and gave the room a jaunty wave. “Hey guys, did ya miss me?”

Steve wanted to roll his eyes, though inwardly he was relieved. Tony was as much of a wisecrack as ever. It seemed that getting his powers back hadn’t stripped him of his human side, as Steve had feared.

Fury got right down to business, “You good now, Stark?”

“Yeah,” Tony grinned. “I must say, I’m touched that you were so worried. I was under the impression that you couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me.”

“That is still up for debate,” Fury said dryly, his one visible eyebrow twitching. “You were an important asset. It would have been a significant loss to S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Hey! I don’t belong to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Tony pointed a finger at Fury in warning. “I told you when I signed on for this gig that I’m a consultant. I don’t take orders from you.”

Fury merely gave him a glare.

Steve decided to ask, “You feeling okay now? You got everything back?”

Tony sobered immediately, and he was Gabriel again. “Not exactly. I’m not at a hundred percent. In fact, neither of us are.” He informed them, gesturing with his hands at himself and then at Joel. “We’re cut off from the rest of the Host. It’ll take a while for us to recover.”

“How long’s a while?” Fury asked.

Joel spoke up, “It may be months, even years. I will likely recover faster, since my Grace is whole, but I will still be expending energy to heal my brother.”

Steve sighed. He’d known it was too much to expect, but it was still a blow to hear Joel’s diagnosis.

“It shouldn’t put too much of a dampener on things,” Tony said, “and I’ve still got Iron Man.”

“See that it doesn’t,” Fury said. He paused for a moment before addressing Joel, “I know we didn’t get off to a good start.” Joel tilted his head, waiting for him to continue, and Fury scowled before he spoke again, “You understand that we had reasons to be cautious.”

Joel didn’t respond, and Tony let out a short laugh, “That’s about as close to an apology as you’re gonna get from him.”

“I am aware of that,” Joel said quietly. He was staring at Fury unblinkingly, and Steve could tell that the man was unnerved. Heck, he was unnerved as well. Unlike Tony, who still looked entirely human and carried himself accordingly, Joel’s whole posture screamed _different._ His body language was unnatural—he held himself too stiffly—and Steve was reminded of the way Gabriel had looked just before he entered that warehouse.

Joel continued in that same quiet voice, “I do not care what you think of me, Nicholas Fury. As long as my brother considers you his ally, I will aid you, but I do not answer to you.”

Fury’s scowl deepened. Tony smirked and patted Joel on the shoulder. “Good on ya. Well, should we get the introductions underway? I’m pretty sure you haven’t met these fine gentlemen right here.” He gestured at Steve, Bruce, and Jarvis. They had arrived with him on the jet.

“I noticed that quite a few of them are warded,” Joel said, glancing at them and at the room at large, his eyes lingering on Clint and Natasha as well. “I assumed it was your work.”

“You’re as sharp as ever, little bro,” Tony said. He looked at the room and dropped his joking face for a serious one. “Joel’s good. I trust him with my life, but I don’t think you need to be told that. I can modify the wards I put on you guys so that he would have access as well. If for some reason I’m not able to reach you, you can call him.”

“Is that really necessary?” Clint grimaced with distaste. He hadn’t liked it the first time. Truth be told, Steve hadn’t liked it either, but it had been worth it. If he hadn’t agreed to it, he wouldn’t be standing here.

“Like I said, I’m not at a hundred percent. I don’t think we’ll need to deal with anything like the Leviathans again, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful. On the off chance that I’m compromised, I want you guys to have a back-up.”

Steve considered this for a moment, then shrugged and said, “Sounds like a good idea to me.” He looked at Joel. “Does prayer work for you as well?”

Joel inclined his head. “Of course.”

“Great!” Tony said brightly and clapped his hands. “Let’s get started. Step on up! Oh, and if you guys want to join in, that’s fine too,” he pointed at Phil Coulson and Fury, who had opted out of getting “angel-tagged” the first time.

Fury grimaced. “No thanks.”

“Your loss. You?” Tony asked Phil.

“Eh, why not,” Phil shrugged. He walked up to Tony. “How does it work?”

“Like this,” Tony put his right hand against Phil’s chest and braced his back with his left.

“Ah…!” Phil drew in a sharp breath, face contorting with pain. Tony let go of him and he doubled over, holding his torso tenderly and wheezing, “You…you didn’t say it was going to hurt!”

“You’ll live,” Tony said. He was all teeth as he waved a hand. “You’ll just be sore for a couple of days.”

Phil grumbled in displeasure. By Tony’s side, Joel was watching with a fascinated look on his face. “I see,” he murmured. “You’ve inscribed the sigils directly onto his ribs. That is ingenious.”

Tony laughed lightly. “As much as I’d like to take credit for it, Castiel was the one who came up with the idea. I just improved on it.” Joel turned to him then, something unreadable in his eyes, and Tony sighed and moved on to Steve.

“You ready?”

Steve took a steadying breath. “Yeah.” He suppressed a groan when he felt it—a burning sensation all around his chest and back. It wasn’t as bad as the first time. He’d be fine with a good night’s sleep, he reckoned.

He found Joel studying him with those old, unblinking eyes. “What?” he asked, but Joel didn’t answer. Steve looked away. Seriously, it was creepy.

Tony went around the room and did the same for everyone who wanted to be warded. In the end, Maria Hill decided to join in as well, much to the consternation of her Director. Steve just watched from his place by the conference room table with his arms crossed over his still tender ribs. Tony got to Jarvis last, though he hesitated for a moment and gave Joel a quick glance before he redid Jarvis’ wards.

As he did with the others, Joel gave Jarvis a long, careful examination. A split second later his eyes widened.

“Gabriel, you…you created…”

“Yep. I have three more. You’ll get to meet ’em too, don’t you worry,” Tony said, though he was watching Joel carefully.

Joel looked positively panicked, which was saying a lot, seeing as he’d shown nearly no emotions since he’d gotten here. “Gabriel, you _created_.”

“So I did,” Gabriel’s face was suddenly blank. “They’re my kids. My family. You have a problem with that? ’Cause if you do, you and I are not gonna work out.” Joel looked between Gabriel and Jarvis uncertainly, and Gabriel continued, voice lowering threateningly, “If you smite them, I will be _very_ unhappy. Capiche?”

Joel said no more, though he looked a bit twitchy, as if he fully expected to be struck dead on the spot.

Gabriel deflated back into Tony again. He hung his head, clenching his fists. “That took more out of me than I thought,” he muttered to himself and squeezed his eyes shut. “Damn it.”

“You must rest, then,” said Thor, putting a hand on Tony’s shoulder. Neither he nor Loki had asked to be warded. Steve supposed that they wouldn’t want to and probably didn’t need to, what with them being Asgardian and all. “If you ever have need of us…”

Tony gave him a grateful smile. “Yeah, I’ll give you a call.”

Steve watched the tired lines on Tony’s face and frowned to himself. If modifying a few wards exhausted him like that, he must be in really bad shape. Joel motioned for Thor to step away and laid his hand on Tony’s back. A soft glow emanated from it, and soon it spread to frame both his and Tony’s bodies. Tony let out a shuddering breath.

“You should refrain from using your Grace for now, brother,” Joel said. Tony nodded, but didn’t answer.

Steve glanced at Joel again. He and Gabriel may have some issues to work out, but Steve was glad that he was here. More than anyone else, Steve understood how lonely Tony was. Now, finally, he had someone to watch his back.

Steve decided that he’d do his best to get along with the new angel, even if he did give him the creeps.


	3. Family Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel confronts Joel about his children. Stark Tower might need some remodeling.

It was evening when they got back to the Tower. When Jarvis reported that Dummy and Butterfingers had somehow managed to blow up the oven, Tony had insisted that he go on ahead of them with the Iron Man suit to make sure that his siblings didn’t burn down the penthouse. He’d figured he didn’t need it at the moment since they were certain that no world-endangering new threat was imminent, but that was hours ago. Unfortunately, Tony didn’t have the luxury of going home early. Fury had practically locked him in the Helicarrier with Joel while he and his agents ran around like headless chickens trying to scramble together an identity for his little brother. If Joel was going to be around, they couldn’t very well tell everyone they come across that he was actually an angel.

When asked if he had a name he’d like to be known by, Joel had somehow come up with “David Keanes.” To Fury and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D., it was a random name that just added to Joel’s quirkiness, but Tony knew better. Joel didn’t have that kind of imagination. That was the name of his vessel. For his part, Tony was surprised that he’d actually gotten to know the guy he was possessing. Most angels didn’t bother to, but Joel had always been the meticulous type.

Tony could have hacked the fake I.D. together in about five minutes, but Fury insisted that it had to be “through the proper channels.” Who knew that vetting a new asset would be so complicated? He didn’t remember it taking so long for him. Then again, he _was_ Tony Stark for some thirty-odd years. Joel had popped out of nowhere. So that probably delayed things. A lot. He supposed he could also chalk it up to the lack of infrastructure after the Leviathans had decimated the top levels of the government.

While they had waited, Thor had received a summons from Asgard and dragged Loki back home to deal with whatever it was that cropped up. Tony hadn’t asked. If it was anything serious, Thor would tell them, and it wasn’t really his business anyway. So he’d amused himself by poking all sorts of holes in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s firewalls and bouncing his newest ideas for Thermonuclear Extraction Theory off of Bruce while watching as Steve alternated between glaring at him in disapproval and looking at Joel like he was afraid he’d suddenly sprout another head or something monstrous. If only he knew what Joel’s true form actually looked like.

As for Joel…

After taking care of Loki’s arm, his little brother had parked himself by one of the large windows that overlooked the bridge and then stayed perfectly silent and still. That was probably why everyone was so weirded out by him, since humans don’t (and can’t) sit in one place without moving a muscle for hours on end. He’d have to work on that, or the best fake story that S.H.I.E.L.D. can come up with will be borderline useless. Gabriel knew what he was doing though. Mending his Grace hadn’t been easy, and Joel was already running on a low battery, so he had made good use of his time to recharge.

When it came time for them to go—finally—it had taken them another hour or so to get back by jet. Joel could have flown them, but had decided to conserve his energy. Those returning (Steve and Bruce) had insisted that they didn’t mind, but their relief was apparent when they set foot back in the Tower.

“Welcome back, sirs,” JARVIS greeted them as they approached the elevator. The doors slid open automatically, and each floor had already been selected for them.

“Ugh. When I woke up this morning I wasn’t planning on flying four hundred miles,” Bruce muttered, working out the kinks in his shoulders as they ascended rapidly. The bell dinged. His place was first. “I need a shower. See you all at breakfast.”

Next was Steve, who was just up one floor. He nodded to them and stepped out. The lift reached the top, where Tony’s penthouse was, and Tony sighed fondly as he took in the familiar sight. Home held so much more meaning now that he remembered.

“Well, this is where I live,” Tony gestured all around with his hands. “Home sweet home. I made a few extra floors so most of the team have their own bunks here. You can have one if you like.”

But Joel didn’t respond. He was instead staring into empty space with a faraway look in his eyes. Tony wasn’t sure if he’d heard at all.

“Hello? Earth to Joey?”

Joel turned to him. “You created several pocket dimensions in this space.”

“Yeah, that’s what I just said. Weren’t you listening?” Tony strode into the kitchen to inspect the damage to the oven. He whistled at the blackened remains. “Wow. What were they making?”

“Dutch apple pie, sir,” Jarvis strode into view with his siblings in tow. “They wanted to congratulate you on your recovery, but I’m afraid that didn’t turn out as they’d hoped. Though how exactly they managed to destroy the oven is something that I can’t quite replicate even with my advanced simulation algorithms.”

Tony’s sweet tooth ached. “Dutch apple pie? Now I want some.” He held up his fingers and was about to snap it into existence when Joel’s hand suddenly darted out and clamped around his.

“I believe I asked you to refrain from using your Grace, Gabriel,” Joel said sternly. “You cannot afford to waste it, especially on such frivolous things as food, which you do not need.”

Tony laughed sheepishly like a toddler caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Sorry, I forgot.” At Joel’s narrowed eyes he quickly added, “Won’t happen again.” Seriously, his little brother could be so bossy.

Dummy bounced up to them. “Daddy! You’re back! J told us you got better!”

“Hey squirt,” Tony ruffled his hair, beaming at his eldest. “Yeah, I did. They found a doctor who could fix me.”

Dummy poked his head out around Tony to stare at Joel. “That’s him, right? J told us about him. His name starts with a J, too!”

“Yep, this is Joel. We’ve known each other for a long time,” Tony told his kids as they gathered around him. “Kids, say ‘hi’ and introduce yourselves.”

“Hi!” They chorused.

“I’m Dummy,” Dummy said.

“I’m Butterfingers!” Butterfingers chirped.

“You.” You grunted, not looking up from his latest project—installing a GPS collar on Walter the robot-dog.

“You’re an angel too?” Dummy asked Joel, eyes wide.

Tony answered Dummy when Joel didn’t respond. “Yeah, he’s my brother.”

“Ohhhhh,” Butterfingers’ mouth opened wide and she grinned at Joel. “Then that means you’re our uncle!”

Uncle? Tony blinked, then a smile slowly stretched across his face. “Hey yeah, you’re right. Uncle Joel. I like the sound of that.”

Joel was as stiff as a board, and seemed rather overwhelmed. “These are…your children?”

“Yeah. Come here, guys,” Tony gestured for the kids to crowd closer. “Let’s let Uncle Joel take a better look at you.” He put his hands on both Dummy and You and changed the sigils with a small touch of Grace. You grimaced, while Dummy gave a yelp. Then he turned to Butterfingers and did the same.

“Ow!” she complained, patting herself down with a frown.

“Sorry, has to be done,” Tony gave them an apologetic smile. “This way Uncle Joel can keep an eye on you in case I’m not around.”

“You’re not…leaving again?” Dummy asked worriedly.

“No, don’t!” Butterfingers exclaimed.

You clutched Walter tightly and fixed him with a reproving glare.

“No, no,” Tony said quickly. “I’m not going anywhere. This is just in case.”

Dummy frowned at him. “There’s something you’re not telling us,” he accused. “You can’t do that again!”

“Yeah!” Butterfingers agreed, nodding vehemently.

“ _No keeping the truth from us again,_ ” You added in Chinese. “ _No leaving us behind._ ”

“I’m afraid I have to agree with that, sir,” Jarvis chimed in quietly. “They deserve to know.”

“I’m not…guys, I…” Tony sighed in frustration. His kids were much too stubborn for their own good. “I’m not leaving. That’s the truth, okay? I’m just not at a hundred percent. I’m…” He lowered his gaze to his hand and clenched it into a fist. Just now, that little exercise with changing the sigils had drained him even more. He really did have to be frugal with his Grace.

“I’m weak. Too weak. And I’m afraid I won’t be able to protect you.” He looked at them again. He needed them to understand. “I need you to be safe.”

Dummy watched him for a minute with wide, earnest eyes, then he stepped forward and hugged Tony around the waist. Butterfingers followed suit, and after another second, so did You.

“We’ll listen to Uncle Joel, Tony,” Dummy mumbled against Tony’s chest, where he’d buried his head.

“We’ll be good,” Butterfingers agreed.

“ _But you have to get well,_ ” You demanded.

Tony smiled wryly. “I’ll do my best.”

Butterfingers rounded on Joel, “Make sure he takes all his medicine.”

Joel, who was watching the three bots warily, blinked in surprise at being addressed. “Medicine?” he asked Tony.

“They took my comment about you being a doctor a little too literally,” Tony chuckled. “Don’t mind them.”

Joel gave no indication that he understood. Instead, he was regarding Gabriel with a reproving glare. “Gabriel, what you have created…”

Tony sighed. “They’re just artificial intelligences. No need to get all worked up.”

“You have given them souls,” Joel accused, his face grim. “They should not exist. They are unnatural and an abomination.”

Tony glanced sharply down at his kids, whose eyes had widened at Joel’s harsh words. He pushed them back toward Jarvis. “J, take them downstairs for a bit. I’ll have a few words with him.”

Jarvis nodded mournfully, guiding his siblings away. “I do wish you luck, sir.”

Tony watched them go. Well, his good mood at seeing his kids had just evaporated, but he supposed it couldn’t be helped. Joel was going to take issue with them sooner or later. In a way, he was glad for this. The sooner he got his point across that his kids were off-limits, the better.

Gabriel turned to his brother. “Joel, I don’t care if you think they’re unnatural and an abomination. I don’t care if you think they shouldn’t have souls. _I don’t care what you think._ ” He lowered his voice. “All I ask is that you keep an eye on them. Keep them from harm. If you can’t even do that, that’s fine. Just leave them _alone_.”

Joel observed him critically with narrowed eyes. “Why do you care for them, if they are only artificial intelligences? Why do you care for these humans, Gabriel? You never have before.”

“They’re my family,” Gabriel glared back at him. “I was alone, Joel. Completely alone. You have no idea what that’s like. They’re the only family I had.”

Joel stared at him. “You’ve changed.”

“Yeah,” Gabriel pressed his lips into a thin line. “I lived here for thirty-seven years, as a human. You don’t walk away from that unchanged.”

“You Fell?”

“No. I died.” Gabriel stated. “Dad brought me back. I don’t know why, but here I am, and I intend to stay here with my family.”

Joel opened his mouth as if he wanted to speak, but decided against it at the last moment. Judging from the way that his Grace had wilted a bit, though, Gabriel was sure he was going to say something along the lines of, _am I not your family, too?_

And he was. Gabriel sighed. Joel was his family, the only one from his old one in this universe who remained himself. If Joel couldn’t get along with his kids, he didn’t know what he would do. It was so unfair. He shouldn’t be forced to choose.

But then, when had life ever been fair to him?

“I won’t stand for it if you harm them. I smote the last one who did,” Gabriel warned. “I don’t want to fight you over this, brother, but if you cannot let this go, you’ll leave me with no choice.”

They glared at each other in a silent contest.

Joel was the first to turn away, defeated. “I have no intention of fighting you, Gabriel. If they are important to you, then so be it.”

“Swear it,” Gabriel demanded, advancing a step. “Swear that you will not harm them.”

Joel looked at him dolefully. “Is not my word enough?”

“I will _have_ your word, Joel. Swear it. Swear it by our Father.”

Joel watched him with unreadable eyes for a long moment before he sighed, closed them, and drew a deep breath. His true voice shattered the air. “ ** _May the Lord deal severely with me, if any harm comes to your children by my hand._** ”

Relieved, Gabriel let his breath out. The words, spoken in Enochian and sealed with the Name of God, reverberated throughout his entire being. It was the most powerful oath that Joel could have sworn. He would not be able to break it.

“Are you satisfied?” Joel asked him irritably.

“Yes,” Gabriel smirked, but it slid off his face when he noticed the state of his penthouse. All of the lights had blown out, and his windows were wrecked. “Aw, man, and I have to fix this manually too.”

Joel gave him a bland look, as if saying, _you totally deserved that_.

“Shut up,” Gabriel muttered.

“I have said nothing, brother,” Joel said mildly.

The sound of heavy footsteps coming from downstairs drew their attention. A moment later Steve and Bruce appeared, breathless, followed more sedately by Jarvis.

“What was that?” Bruce asked in alarm. A towel was draped around his neck and his hair was still plastered against his face in wet strands. He’d obviously just gotten out of the shower. “We heard a rumble, and all the windows and lights blew out!”

“We thought there was an attack,” Steve looked around before landing his eyes on Joel. “But now I think…maybe there wasn’t.”

Gabriel put a hand to his face. “Oh, don’t tell me…”

“I’m afraid the power is out in the entire Tower, sir,” Jarvis reported. “The arc reactor is unharmed, but I cannot access it.”

Gabriel breathed in deeply before letting it out along with his frustration. This was what he got for asking Joel to swear an oath of that magnitude without first thinking it over. But it was worth it, for the safety of his children. “Jarvis, go down and see if you can’t connect us on the backup system. It was offline, so it shouldn’t be affected.”

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis nodded, but just as he was about to turn to go down the stairs, Joel stopped him with a raised hand.

“Wait.”

Gabriel raised an eyebrow at him. “Really now, Joel? After what you just swore to me?”

“You misunderstand,” Joel replied, frowning. “Can you not feel it, brother?”

“Feel what?” It was Gabriel’s turn to frown.

Joel crouched down and placed a hand on the floor, the tips of his fingers touching the tiled granite littered with glass. “Your Grace, Gabriel. There is a piece here. A strong one. I did not sense it before through the pocket dimensions, but it responded to my voice just now.”

Gabriel blinked. Now that Joel mentioned it, he really did feel it—a part of himself in the Tower. It was a vague sort of humming at the edge of his senses, a very faint echo of the Grace in himself. It was in the floor and in the air. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before.

“There’s another piece here?” Steve asked with wide eyes. “Can you get it?”

“Yes, I should,” Joel seemed to be calculating how much energy that would cost him. “But I will need time, and you should vacate the building.” There was certainly going to be a backwash of power. They would need to evacuate everyone in it.

But…judging from how much energy he’d already used today, Gabriel wasn’t sure if it was a good idea for Joel to retrieve it. “I can do it, Joel,” he said. “You’re low on power, and it’s _my_ Grace.”

Joel rose to his feet and gave him a dubious look. “You are weak, Gabriel.”

“I’m not that weak,” Gabriel protested.

“You cannot even fly.”

“I don’t need my wings for this.”

Joel tilted his head. “Can you locate it?”

Gabriel scowled, knowing that he’d been caught, and Joel lifted his eyebrows mildly in an _I told you so_ manner. For an angel who hadn’t been around humans in two thousand years, Joel sure knew his way around silent communication. Then again, maybe it was just because Gabriel knew him that well.

“You will leave it to me,” Joel stated conclusively. Gabriel rolled his eyes.

“Fine.” He waved a hand as he started toward the exit. “Come on, guys. I don’t think you want to be here when this place gets busted up even worse.”

Joel sighed. “Wait.”

“What now?” Gabriel turned back to him in exasperation. But before he could say anything else, there was a flutter of wings and he suddenly found himself on ground level along with Steve, Bruce, and his kids. He blinked. “Oh wow. Thanks for the ride. I thought you were too tired to fly?”

Joel gave him a flat look. “You would rather walk down eighty-nine flights of stairs?” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and disappeared in a rush of displaced air.

“Huh,” Gabriel sat back on his heels.

“Well, that was thoughtful of him,” Steve commented.

“He’s an ass,” Gabriel muttered. “Bossing me around. Who does he think he is?”

“I don’t know. He’s starting to grow on me.” Bruce was grinning. He had obviously enjoyed watching the exchange between them. “He gives better rides than you do.”

“Shut up.”

“Sir, shall I see if I can connect to the secondary system?” Jarvis asked.

Gabriel sighed. “You do that.”

“And what shall I give as the reason for the evacuation?”

“I don’t know. Make something up. Say that we’re having issues with the reactor or something.”

“But wouldn’t people question why the power’s back on?” Bruce pointed out.

“Only people with a brain, Bruce, and all of them have already gone home for the day.”

* * *

Joel waited at the top of the Tower, in the midst of the shattered glass that was once the penthouse’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Gabriel always had a flair for the dramatic, so he supposed it wasn’t a surprise that he’d make his home at the top of a skyscraper. The building was cleverly engineered, much like the Helicarrier, and if Joel was one to gamble, he would wager that Gabriel had designed both.

He could feel the souls below him leave the building one by one. The piece of Gabriel’s Grace echoed at the back of his mind, but he could not retrieve it before the Tower completely emptied, or he would risk killing everyone in it. He doubted that Gabriel would be very pleased if he was that careless. So he waited, and he used the time to gather energy and ponder over the words that he and his brother had exchanged.

Gabriel was different, that much was certain. His brother seemed to have formed strong bonds with the people around him. These humans…Gabriel obviously thought them very important. Joel was not sure why that was so. He understood the value of souls and the value of life. He tried not to take them if he could help it, out of reverence for his Father’s creation, but he did not see why specific individuals should be given special treatment. And Gabriel’s protectiveness was not born from a general respect for life. He was guarded, defensive—jealously possessive, like a hen over her brood, and it was Joel that he was guarding them against. It saddened him that his brother would face him that way, as if he was an enemy or a potential threat.

As for his children…

Joel shuddered. It was wrong, what Gabriel had done. The power to create life belonged only to their Father. It was not something that any angel—even an Archangel—should be able to do. It was blasphemous, and they should not exist.

But there was nothing that Joel could do about it now. Gabriel had forced an oath from him, even forced him to invoke their Father’s Name, and he _could not_ break his word. It was a bit overdone, he thought. Gabriel had made his point clear, and Joel had acceded to it. He had no desire to come to blows with his brother, not over something like this. It was not worth it.

Nothing would ever be worth killing one of his siblings again.

The last of the humans trickled out, and Joel sighed heavily. He was known to be patient, so he would wait, and see, and observe. Perhaps in time, he would find out the reason why Gabriel had attached himself to this universe, to these humans, to these…artificial intelligences, but for now he would set these thoughts aside. He had a task to do, and it would require all of his focus.

* * *

“All right, that should be the last of them,” Happy Hogan, Tony’s Head of Security, said as the last of the janitorial staff left the Tower. He gave Tony a sidelong glance. “You wanna tell me what this is really about? ‘Cause I’m not buying the B.S. you had Jarvis tell everyone.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

Happy rolled his eyes. “Boss, I might not be a genius, but I can put two and two together. You don’t design faulty machinery, and the arc reactor is your baby. Plus, you’ve got…you know, your _side projects_. I’m guessing this is related to that?”

Tony grinned widely, clapping Happy on the back. “Well, what do you know? You do have a brain.”

“I’m glad you have such a high opinion of me,” Happy muttered.

“Happy, I’ve always had a high opinion of you.”

Happy didn’t look very convinced. He crossed his arms. “So?”

“So what?”

“So are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

Tony considered it for a moment. It wouldn’t hurt, he supposed. Plus, it was going to come out sooner or later. “Well, you guessed right. This _is_ related to my side projects. And it’s related to why I was called in so suddenly this morning.”

“You didn’t tell me anything about that.”

“I’m telling you now.” He gave Happy a meaningful glance. “They found a way to fix me.”

Happy’s eyes widened. “Then…you…you remember now?”

“Yeah,” Tony smiled.

Happy gave his own wide, toothy grin. “Glad to have you back, boss. Pepper is going to be happy.”

Tony’s mouth twitched wryly. “Not going to be so happy when this is over.”

“What?”

Just as they were speaking, a rumble began from the basement of the Tower and reverberated all the way up to the top. Even though they had already retreated to the next block, everyone still took a step back.

“Has it started?” Steve glanced up apprehensively.

“Yeah,” Tony answered.

He could feel it now. The echo had become a discernible noise, a ringing hum that made his entire being vibrate. He shivered. The Grace in himself and the Grace in the Tower reacted with each other, the resonance building up in a crescendo.

_Pop!_

Happy flinched when the streetlight next to them burst into a shower of sparks. Someone cried out in alarm. The ground beneath them trembled, and most of the humans dropped to their hands and knees. Tony remained standing, staring at the Tower. There was a faint glow around it. At first, it was only visible to his eyes, but then it began to build.

“You all might want to close your eyes,” he called out.

The light traveled up and intensified. It reached the top and burst outward in a circle of white that lit up the night sky. A second later, the shock wave swept over them in a violent gust of air, triggering the alarms on the cars around them. There was a final rumble from the Tower, and then everything was still.

Tony looked around and let out a whistle. There was not a single light left on in Manhattan. The backlash had been a bit more powerful than he’d imagined.

“Holy smokes,” Steve exclaimed softly. “All of that from a bit of you?”

Tony chuckled nervously. “Well, I didn’t really expect this much, either.”

“I think he blew out the entire grid.” Bruce glanced up at the darkened buildings around them. People were starting to mill out into the streets, having heard the commotion. “I’m guessing that was equivalent to, what, ten gigawatts of power?”

“Oh, easily,” Tony replied. He started walking. “Come on, let’s get back inside.”

“Is that safe?” Bruce asked worriedly.

“He’s got it. It’ll be fine.”

“But what about the structural integrity of the building?”

“Bruce, I designed this thing to withstand a 9.0 on the Richter scale. It’s not going to collapse on us anytime soon.”

They found the lobby in a mess. There was paper, rubble and glass everywhere, and—

“Wait…” Bruce hurried to a large piece of mattress standing half-upright against the wall between the reception desk and the elevators. “Is that…is that my _bed_?” He flipped the thing over. “How…how did this get…”

Tony felt like face-palming. He should’ve known that retrieving his Grace here meant undoing every modification he’d made to the Tower. “The pocket dimensions must have collapsed.”

“You mean our rooms don’t exist anymore?” Bruce asked, aghast. “Then what about all our stuff?”

Tony shut his eyes. “They…could be anywhere.”

“What!?”

“Why didn’t you tell us that could happen?”

“I…ah…might have forgotten,” Tony said sheepishly, and he winced when both Steve and Bruce glared at him.

“I had research notes!”

“Tony, I need my briefcase back. You don’t know what will happen if the files in it falls into the wrong—”

“It took me months to write that paper—”

“—not to mention, that’s my last link to my life before I—”

“Okay, okay,” Tony put his hands up. “I’m sorry, all right? I’ll try and see if I can track them down with Joel.” He huffed. Why were they all blaming it on him anyway? It was Joel who did it.

Steve glanced around. “Speaking of him…where is he?”

“Here.”

They turned and found Joel at the other end of the reception desk, one hand holding it for support and the other clenched into a fist at his chest.

“You have it?” Tony asked.

Joel nodded, breathing heavily. He turned his fist over and opened his hand. Something brilliantly white shone through his fingers.

“Is that…” Bruce breathed, leaning closer for a better look.

“My Grace, in its raw form, or at least a physical manifestation of it,” Tony said. “You might not want to stare at it for too long. Kind of the same deal with staring at the sun, you know?”

Steve and Bruce averted their eyes immediately.

Tony turned back to Joel. “Joel, I can—Joel!” He rushed up to him. He had meant to take the Grace from Joel, but before he could voice his intent, his brother had swallowed it.

“Hey! What—” Steve started forward, but Tony motioned him back. Joel was glowing, his face a pained grimace as he forced Gabriel’s Grace into a dense ball in himself. Gabriel reached for him, but Joel motioned him back with a sharp gesture. It was a minute before the Grace settled and the glow faded from Joel’s skin.

“Ah, you idiot,” Gabriel admonished. “Why did you do that? You could’ve given it to me.”

“I do not have the strength to help you assimilate it right now.” Joel’s voice was weak. “And it is better in the long run if I gather more pieces together before returning them to you.”

“You could’ve put it in something else! You didn’t have to use yourself.” At this rate, Joel’s vessel was not going to last.

“And risk it destabilizing?” Joel gave him a sharp look. “Gabriel, you do not understand the severity of your condition. What you did to destroy the Leviathans…you destabilized your Grace as a whole, and every piece out there has been left with that imprint. They have sought to protect themselves by finding receptacles that could hold them, but when I retrieve them and they awake from dormancy…” Joel shook his head. “I was fortunate to not have been destroyed by the one you left in the crater. It is not safe to leave them out in their raw form.”

Everyone was silent as Joel finished his explanation. Gabriel lowered his head. He hadn’t thought it was this bad. “I understand,” he said, subdued.

Joel took in a deep breath, as if he was pulling himself together. “This piece is strong. I do not intend to hold it for long. Once I have the strength to, I will return it to you.”

Gabriel smiled and patted his back. “Thanks. You don’t have to rush.” Joel was doing this for him at great cost to himself. He could wait a few days to get it back. Joel nodded, but said nothing more. He was probably too tired to.

Tony sighed and looked around at the ruined building. “I guess we’ll probably have to look for another place to sleep tonight.”

“You think?” Steve remarked dryly. “You’re gonna have to come up with an explanation for the police, too. They’re starting to gather around outside.”

“Already?” Tony pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah. And my guess is Fury’s gonna be on the line in about ten minutes, and he’s not going to be happy.”

“Steve, one thing at a time, please,” Tony sighed. This was going to be a long night.


	4. Reconstruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gabriel finds his recovery an unpleasant process. Meanwhile, gears are turning in the background.

Tony picked at his nails as he slouched in the comfy chair of the hotel conference room. The Hyatt Regency had a backup generator, but the lights were still on low. That probably made it hard for Fury to see them in the two-way video conference. Not that he cared, of course.

“The. Entire. Grid.” Fury’s face was a mask of ire. “Not even twelve hours, and you’ve already managed to blow out _the entire power grid_ in Manhattan. What’s next? Are we going to have a repeat of Hurricane Sandy?”

Joel’s expression was utterly blank as he asked, “Do you need me to create a storm?”

Fury threw his hands up. “I can’t talk to you. Why do I even bother? My job description is obviously ‘cleaning up messes after angels.’”

Tony objected to that. “Well Nick, to be fair, most of the messes that we’ve faced so far haven’t really been our fault—”

“You. Zip it.” Fury pointed a finger at him warningly and made a slashing gesture across his throat. “I don’t want to hear anything more from you, Stark. You hear?”

“Then I guess you don’t want to hear that I’ve found another piece of myself?” Tony said nonchalantly.

Fury froze. “Was that what happened?”

“Yeah,” Tony straightened up, letting his elbows rest on the smooth surface of the conference table. “There was a piece of my Grace at the Tower. Joel retrieved it, and the backlash was what caused the outage.”

“So the whole thing about doing an experimental upgrade on the arc reactor—”

“Complete bull I fed to the press,” Tony said. Fury rolled his eyes. He probably already expected something like this. “Don’t worry, I’ve thrown in enough scientific jargon that will scramble their brains for days. That should keep them occupied and very far from the truth. There’s no connection to the Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“How considerate of you,” Fury said dryly. “But I can fight my own media battles.”

“Hey, didn’t say you couldn’t,” Tony shrugged. “But that was what I could come up with on the fly, and I gotta make sure my reputation in green energy still stands.”

“Damage is already done, Stark,” Fury shook his head. “This isn’t going to just blow over. You’ve crippled a major American city. There’s going to be fallout at the national level.”

“I know,” Tony sighed. The Governor had already issued a state of emergency. He just knew this was all going to come crashing down on his head.

Fury took pity on him. “I’ll do what I can on my end to keep Congress off your back, but I’m making no promises.”

“Thanks,” Tony said, giving Fury a weak smile.

“In either case I’ll be sending Agent Romanov and Agent Barton down to get a comprehensive report. You should expect them tomorrow.” He glared at all of them. “Anything else I need to know?”

“No,” Tony said.

“Yes,” Steve piped up at the same time.

“Steve, that’s not—”

“I disagree,” Steve didn’t back down. “It’s better if everyone’s on the same page.”

“He’s got no business—”

“Stark, shut up,” Fury said sharply. “Carry on, Captain.”

Steve let out a breath, ignoring Tony’s death glare. “According to Joel, Gabriel did something to his Grace when he took out the Leviathans. All the pieces out there—they’re unstable, though I’m not really clear on the details. Joel’s got the one at the Tower so that one’s okay, but I think our first priority is finding the rest and getting them back.”

“Are you telling me that I’m looking at possibly uncountable dangerous objects that have the potential to wipe out an entire city?” Fury was aghast.

“It’s not like that!” Tony protested, waving his hands. “The danger is when you retrieve them. If you don’t agitate them too much, they’ll stay dormant in their vessels.”

Fury didn’t look very placated. “And you thought I shouldn’t be informed about this?”

“And that would change what?” Tony raised his eyebrows. “You’ve got no jurisdiction.”

“Like hell it isn’t my jurisdiction,” Fury snapped back. “If we have to deal with this every time you find one—”

“And what would you do?” Gabriel was serious now. “What _can_ you do?”

Fury blew out an exasperated huff. “Bring us the piece you just found. We can try to isolate it, find a way to stabilize these things.”

Gabriel stared at him. He was out of his mind. “Unacceptable,” he snapped. “This is not something you can deal with.”

“We have to try to find a way to retrieve them without _blowing up an entire city’s power grid!_ ”

“And you would _die_ trying to do it!” Gabriel said angrily.

“We have scientists that are every bit as capable as you, Stark. You do not have the monopoly on genius.”

“Do I need to remind you that science is useless when it comes to someone like me? And even if you can figure out a way to do it, I’m not going to let you get your hands on a piece of _my_ Grace!”

They stared at each other, one from a dim hotel conference room, one from a well-lit, state-of-the-art technological facility. Neither backed down an inch.

“Tony…I think the Director might have a point,” Bruce spoke hesitantly in the tense atmosphere. He hurriedly put up his hands when Gabriel turned to glower at him. “Not that I’m disagreeing with you in that you don’t want S.H.I.E.L.D. poking at a piece of yourself, but…isn’t there another way to get these things back without…you know, them going boom? And I know you guys can zip around all over the place, but wouldn’t it be better to have some help on this? We can put you back together faster with more people looking.”

Gabriel sighed. “You don’t get it, Bruce. This isn’t something that humans are capable of handling.”

Bruce turned to Joel. “Care to give a second opinion?”

The conference room was quiet. Even Fury was looking at him expectantly.

“Gabriel is right,” Joel said after a moment. “Angelic Grace is very dangerous to humans, especially an Archangel’s, and it is meaningless for you to search for them because you cannot locate them without our senses.” He looked up at the screen, where Fury was scowling down at them. “But each piece is different. Some, I can retrieve easily. Others…others are more difficult.”

“Like the one in the Tower?” Steve asked. “You said it was strong.”

“Yes. Even apart from us, our Grace still retains sentience. The stronger it is, the more aware it is. It is easier if I already have a piece. If it recognizes me, it is more willing to come to me.”

“What do they usually look like? These…pieces?” Fury asked. Gabriel frowned at Fury’s question, but while he was still debating whether or not Fury should be privy to that information, Joel had already answered it.

“The manifestations can vary greatly. Usually, the separation of Grace from angel occurs when we Fall, and collects in one place, but in Gabriel’s case, his Grace has been scattered throughout the universe. Where it lands, it will create a supernatural phenomenon, often plant life that comes into being from nothing. Or, in the case of this one,” Joel placed a hand on his chest to indicate the one he had just retrieved, “reinforce a supernatural phenomenon—the pocket dimensions that Gabriel created.”

“So if we look for unnatural energy signatures…” Bruce mused speculatively.

“You may locate the phenomenon, but you would still be unable to retrieve it,” Joel said. “Manipulating angelic Grace requires finesse and a deep knowledge of Enochian, which I doubt that you possess.”

Fury narrowed his one visible eye. “You’re saying there’s nothing we can do?”

Joel shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

Fury crossed his arms, still looking unsatisfied.

“Well, you heard him,” Gabriel said wearily. “We’re going to look for more starting tomorrow. If it looks like trouble, we’ll give you a heads-up. Can you accept that?”

Fury’s mouth flattened. “It looks like I have no choice.”

But if Gabriel knew him at all, the man was not going to let the matter rest.

“Nick, I’m serious about this. Don’t go looking for them.”

Fury raised an eyebrow. “I heard it the first time, Stark.”

“And I know you’re going to ignore me,” Gabriel retorted. “But you can’t. You’re _human_. This is my Grace, okay? And I won’t have you messing with it.”

“And if we do find one?”

“Then inform me or Joel immediately.” Gabriel said in the most severe tone he could manage. At least Fury wasn’t denying it. “Don’t try anything else. If you want to live, you will do as I say.”

There was a long silence before Fury finally relented. “Fine.” He paused. “But you will keep me updated on this.”

Gabriel responded with a sarcastic, “Aye aye, sir.”

He briefly considered making Fury misplace his eyepatch, but Joel would disapprove of him using his Grace frivolously. Oh well. He would get back to pranking when he was better.

* * *

Pepper was, of course, less than pleased when she heard what happened to the Tower. She had been away in D.C. attending some conference that Tony had forgotten the name of and had flown in first thing in the morning with Clint and Natasha.

“I leave you alone for one weekend and this is what happens,” she grumbled as they shuffled through the wreckage in Tony’s office. “Do you have any idea what this will do to our investors? Our stocks have dropped twenty points as of _this morning_ , and the board is already after my head.”

“Tell them to shove it,” Tony said flippantly as he tried to salvage what was left of his computer.

“No, Tony,” Pepper replied in a tone that was meant for a four-year-old. “That’s what _you_ do, and then I get to run after you to clean the mess up.”

“Exactly. That’s why I pay you.”

“Can you at least be serious about this?!” Pepper looked about ready to blow a fuse. Tony decided that he should probably stop fanning her temper.

“Sorry.”

She wasn’t impressed with his apology. “I can’t make it just go away this time. This is the entire city we’re talking about.”

“I know. I know, okay? But I couldn’t just tell them what really happened,” Tony said, trying to placate her.

“But did you really have to pick ‘the arc reactor malfunctioned’ as a cover story? And honestly, why is it that every time one of your ‘old acquaintances’ pop up, things go to hell?”

“Joel’s just trying to help.”

“Well, tell him to get his own place,” Pepper said snappishly, throwing down a stack of files that she’d just reorganized. “Because if he blows up Malibu, too, I’m going to strangle him.”

“I doubt you can do that,” Tony laughed nervously. Pepper hadn’t met Joel yet. Joel had flittered off to somewhere in North Africa before she arrived, presumably to search for more of his Grace. Absently, Tony wondered what her reaction would be once she did, and then he worried about what Joel would do. His brother was not good at dealing with humans and their emotions.

“Watch me,” Pepper warned. “I’ve half a mind to strangle you too, since you did nothing to stop him.”

“What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t just leave my Grace lying around,” Tony said helplessly.

Pepper gave him an indecipherable look.

Tony raised his eyebrow. “What?”

Pepper didn’t respond. She turned away, a pained look on her face. Tony paused in his rummaging and stepped gingerly over his scattered documents to her.

“What is it, Pepper?”

Pepper bit her lips, and it seemed to Tony that she was trying not to cry. “You’ve been gone for three months, Gabriel. You can’t just act as if nothing’s happened in that time.”

The use of his name was startling. Gabriel looked down. “I’m sorry.” He remembered, because _Tony_ was still in him, and _Tony_ had spent the last three months here. He remembered every conversation, every argument. For the last three months, Pepper had never once called him Gabriel, because Tony had begged her not to.

Pepper blinked, chuckling lightly. The smile on her face was so fake that Tony almost cringed when he saw it. “It’s…it’s nothing. I’m just glad that you’re back.”

“Pepper…” Tony said softly.

“It’s nothing,” Pepper said firmly. “We’ve got more important things to worry about right now.”

Tony sighed. “Yeah.”

* * *

The Tower was a mess, but thankfully there was no lasting structural damage. The arc reactor would have to be replaced as well as the windows and lighting, and maybe some walls needed to be repainted, but all the wiring was still intact. And the plumbing. As long as he didn’t have to replace _that_ , Tony could forgive Joel.

As it were, they would still have to wait a few weeks before the Tower would be functional again, so in the meantime the team was relocating to Malibu. Stark Industries would temporarily be headquartered at their office in Los Angeles. Tony was actually kind of looking forward to it. New York was convenient, but it was too crowded. Too loud. Too…important. Malibu was his escape. Although now that the team was staying over, it wasn’t as much of an escape as it once was.

Clint whistled as he glanced around Tony’s living room, letting out a disbelieving whoop when he saw the home theater system. “Dude, your TV costs more than a year of my salary.” He picked up a copy of Call of Duty from Tony’s collection of games. “Oh man! I haven’t played this since I joined the Academy! Do you mind?”

“Help yourself,” Tony shrugged.

“Oh, I will,” Clint grinned.

Natasha rolled her eyes at Clint’s childish antics. “If you level up your virtual combat skills at the expense of your real ones, I will make you regret it.”

“You’ll try,” Clint retorted, smirking.

Natasha smiled dangerously. “I’ll kill you in game, and then I’ll kill you in reality.”

“Bit too early for killing people, don’t you think?” Steve set his duffel bag down with a thump.

“Is that all you brought?” Tony asked.

“Well, yes, since this is all I have left, after your brother vanished the rest of my stuff away,” Steve informed him dryly.

“Sorry about that.”

“Nah, it’s okay. It’s mostly just clothes, and I’m not too attached to them. I haven’t got much since I…well, you know. It’s just that my briefcase has some important documents in it. If I can have that back, I’ll be good.”

“I’ll have Joel look into it,” Tony promised.

Steve nodded, glancing around. “He hasn’t gotten back yet?”

“No. He’ll be a while, I suspect. I’ll give you a heads-up when he does.”

“Thanks.”

After showing the Avengers where each of their rooms were, Tony was accosted by Pepper.

“I need to talk to you.”

“All right,” Tony said as they stepped aside for some privacy. “Spill.”

Pepper’s face was grim, and Tony gathered that it wasn’t good news. Sure enough…

“They’re calling for a hearing, Tony,” Pepper informed him. “They want to hold _you_ personally responsible for what happened.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s they?”

“The Senate,” Pepper said with a very light huff.

Tony scoffed.

“Tony, this is not a joke.” Pepper’s face was drawn and worried. “I just got the news from Phil. I told him you’d call him back.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t he just call me?"

“You were otherwise occupied,” Pepper gestured with her chin toward the Avengers, who have made themselves comfortable. “And he didn’t want to wait.”

Tony sighed. “Fine. I’ll get around to it.”

Hadn’t Fury said he would handle this? As if he didn’t have enough on his plate, Tony now had to deal with the sort of creatures he hated the most—politicians.

His last Senate hearing hadn’t gone very well, but he supposed that he’d find some way of amusing himself. At the very least, he’d make sure to get Pepper to try out the hot dogs from Ben’s Chili Bowl this time.

* * *

Joel returned at about four in the morning the day after they’d arrived in Malibu, after almost two full days and nights away. Since Tony had gone back to not sleeping, he was the only one up. He was downstairs tinkering when Joel’s presence pinged on his senses.

“Sir,” JARVIS spoke from overhead.

“Yeah, I know,” Tony acknowledged. “Tell him I’m downstairs.”

In another minute, JARVIS opened the door to his workshop for Joel.

“Hey, you’re back,” Tony waved.

His brother nodded in greeting, but didn’t answer. His shoulders were slumped.

“You okay?” Tony asked, concerned.

“I am fine,” Joel replied. Tony didn’t believe him. He dropped his project in favor of more closely examining Joel. Joel’s true form seemed to be quivering, like he could barely hold himself still.

“You found more,” he realized.

“Yes,” Joel said tightly. “I must return them to you. I can hold them no longer.”

“Okay.” Tony nodded and left his workbench as Joel moved toward him.

His brother paused in front of him. “You have warded your vessel, Gabriel. If I am to heal you, you must grant me access.”

Gabriel blinked. “I forgot about that,” he murmured. He’d done it as a precaution, just in case he needed to leave his body behind. Concentrating, he let his Grace touch the sigils and change them _just so_ …

He gasped, suddenly feeling light-headed, and very, very tired. The room spun.

“Easy, brother.” Joel gripped his shoulder, steadying him, then he reached inside himself and pulled something out—a glimmering strand of pure Grace, the sight of which set Gabriel’s form ablaze. Joel let it hang in the air for a moment, and then, all at once, he poured it into him.

Fire and energy surged through him. Gabriel gasped again, as memories of _that day_ once more flooded him. He heard the Fantastic Four’s description of Purgatory, their eyes wide with horror at what they’d seen. He saw the shredded, frayed wards around the Tesseract, eaten through by monsters too ferocious for Asgardian magic, and the sight of it plunged his heart into bone-chilling fear. Odin’s staff lay abandoned by the pedestal, surrounded by dismembered bodies in the violated vault. On the ground, Asgardian blood mingled with the abominable black slime of the Leviathans.

Along with the memories came the emotions, visceral and raw—the terror, the despair, the absolute disgust at what he must do. He was too human, too much Tony Stark, and he must carve it out. He had no other choice.

He couldn’t bear it. He didn’t want to remember. The memory of tearing his humanity out of himself was too painful. It filled him, weighing him down, like gravity dragging a dying star inwards only for the core to push out in one last struggle before it exploded, the burst of light annihilating everything—

“You must not reject it,” Joel’s voice, harsh and urgent, reminded him that he was _here_ , that this was _now_ , not then. “It is a part of yourself. You must absorb it and exert your will over it! If you let it overtake you, then we will all be destroyed!”

No. No, he couldn’t let that happen. Steeling his will, Gabriel reminded himself that it was over. He remembered what happened and remembered that it was in the past and that this was now. He was here. Everyone was alive. There were no more Leviathans. The memories seeped into him, returning home. Grace sought Grace and Gabriel welcomed it back like a long lost child.

Joel watched him carefully. “Has it stabilized?”

He let out a long, shaky breath, nodding.

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Joel placed a hand on his back. “I will begin fusing them together. Gird yourself, brother. This will be painful.”

Gabriel barely had time to ready himself before Joel reached into him and _pulled_. Strand by strand, Joel unraveled his Grace, twining it with his own to fortify it. His true form trembled at the energy being poured into him. And. It. Hurt. Gabriel clenched his teeth, but he was unable to stifle the cry that tore out of him as Joel began to piece his broken Grace together, stitch by painful stitch. He twitched, the uncontrolled motion causing his ceiling lights to flicker.

“Hold still, brother,” Joel said in a strained voice.

Gabriel had no strength to answer him, his focus solely on _not_ thinking about how much it hurt, which meant, of course, that it was _all_ he could think about.

Hours seemed to pass before the pain finally subsided.

“You really…ought to think about…some better way to do this,” Gabriel said between gasps.

“My apologies,” Joel panted, equally out of breath. His movements were sluggish, but he was already gathering himself to begin again.

Gabriel turned, putting a hand on Joel and stopping him. He could feel the very slight trembling of Joel’s body. “I think neither of us can take much more. Let’s leave it for another day.”

Joel acquiesced with a slow nod. He looked exhausted, and Gabriel didn’t blame him. He probably hadn’t rested properly since he left.

The two of them sat in silence as they recovered, their heavy breaths the only sounds audible.

“Sir,” JARVIS chimed in. “I have breakfast ready, and the others are awake, if you would like to join them.”

Gabriel let out a long exhale. “Sounds good.” He carefully pushed himself to his feet, noting with surprise that the sky outside his window was light. More time had passed than he thought.

Slowly, he made his way up, half aware that Joel followed behind him.

“Morning, Tony.” Steve greeted from the the breakfast table. Clint was on one of the couches by the TV, surfing through the channels. Natasha was next to him, inspecting her weapons. Bruce hadn’t gotten up yet, and neither had Pepper or the kids, but Jarvis could be heard making eggs and pancakes in the kitchen.

When Gabriel didn’t answer and instead sank into the opposite chair with a grimace, Steve sat up straighter, laying aside the newspaper he was reading.

“Hey, you don’t look too good. You feeling okay?”

“Mm. Bit sore, but I’ll be fine. Don’t talk to me right now. I need to concentrate.”

He rubbed at his chest unconsciously as he tried to force his Grace to settle. It was like trying to hold a cup of water still while in a bumpy car. It wasn’t just his Grace, either. There was also a large amount of Joel’s, and it was basically what was holding him together. His true form ached, and he felt as if he could shatter at any moment. Joel had done his best, but Gabriel knew that he was still a long ways away from being fully healed.

Shooting him another concerned glance, Steve turned to Joel. “Morning, Joel. Good to see you back.”

Joel ignored him completely. Steve raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment on his rudeness. “Say, uh…I meant to ask you to look into my briefcase. It’s kind of important that I have it back.”

Natasha and Clint looked up, their attention caught. Joel said nothing, and Steve frowned and tried again. “Joel? Uh…did you hear me?”

Upon hearing his name called repeatedly, Joel finally answered, “Yes, I heard you.”

Steve huffed out a breath. “Well, could you look into it?”

Joel gave him a blank look. “I am not all-seeing. I do not know the contents of your briefcase.”

Steve blinked, obviously not expecting Joel to take “look into it” literally. “Uh, what I meant is can you find it.”

At this, Joel frowned slightly. “My priority is in finding Gabriel’s Grace. Your briefcase is of no consequence.”

Steve looked taken aback. “It’s important to me. I need it back.”

“That is not my concern,” Joel said cooly. Steve’s mouth dropped open.

“Hey,” a new voice sounded behind them. Bruce had just walked in, having heard the last bit of the conversation. “What, you went and blew our stuff to who knows where, and now you’re not even going to try to look?”

“It is of no consequence,” Joel repeated.

“It’s—”

“Joel.” Gabriel decided to cut in before things could get heated. “Just…do what they say,” he said wearily.

Joel looked to him for a moment before giving a small, curt nod. “Very well.”

Bruce sat down at the table, but his eyes were still fixed on Joel. The silence was tense. On the couch, Clint exchanged a glance with Natasha.

Gabriel sighed, deciding that it was best if he sent Joel somewhere else. “I know you’re tired. Go rest. I’ll call if I need you.”

With another nod, Joel turned to leave. His posture was stiffer than usual, as if he was having trouble moving his vessel. Tony watched him worriedly as he left.

As soon as he was out of sight, Clint muttered, “Well that was rude.”

“He didn’t mean it,” Tony tried to explain. “He’s not used to being around humans.”

“Great excuse for being an ass,” Bruce grumbled. He was still pissed about losing two days’ worth of work on his analysis of anti-neutrino interactions.

“Who’s being an ass, now?” Pepper said sleepily as she ambled in.

“Our resident angel,” Clint answered.

“We’ve got two, Clint,” Natasha reminded him.

“Ah,” Pepper nodded as if that was all the explanation she needed. “Well, that sufficiently describes both of them.”

“Pepper!” Tony protested.

Pepper raised her eyebrows, daring him to say otherwise. Tony decided to let it go. He didn’t really have the energy for it right now.

Pepper’s eyes narrowed and she frowned down at him. “You look terrible,” she commented.

“Do I?” Tony chuckled weakly.

“Yeah. Actually, you do,” Steve said from his end of the table. “Did something happen?”

Tony sighed. “Nothing you need to worry about. Like I said, I’m just a bit sore. I’ll be fine.”

“Wait, you guys didn’t fight, did you?” Clint asked.

“What?” Tony was thrown off momentarily. “No, no, no. Nothing of that sort. Joel was working on me, that’s all. No fighting.”

“But if you were to take him on,” Clint said, leaning forward on his elbows. “Who would win? Who’s stronger, you or him?”

Tony rolled his eyes. “What do you think? I’m an Archangel.”

“Yeah, and you also just got pieced back together.”

Tony opened his mouth to retort, but someone beat him to it.

“Clint,” Natasha said quietly with a shake of her head. “Maybe not the best time right now.”

Clint shut his mouth, but the look that passed between the two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had Tony’s hackles rising.

The tension was so thick that even Pepper picked up on it. “Is something going on?” she asked, glancing between the two with suspicious eyes.

“Breakfast, and I say long enough,” Jarvis interrupted with two huge, steaming plates of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon that smelled absolutely mouth-watering. “There is more where that came from. Now please be so kind to eat them before they get cold and leave business until after you’ve finished. Can I get you anything to drink?”

Tony gave him a grateful look for diffusing the situation. “I’ll have some apple juice if you don’t mind, Jarvis. Thank you.”

Quelled by Jarvis, the others settled back into their morning routines, but Tony’s mind was on that look between Clint and Natasha. They knew something he didn’t, and most likely, they weren’t willing to share.

In any case, he needed to keep an eye on his brother and make sure he didn’t get into any trouble. And maybe it was time for him to do a little digging behind S.H.I.E.L.D.’s firewalls again.


	5. Auld Acquaintances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is a magnet for celebrities. Rumiko has high standards for tea. Tony deals with troublesome politicians.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler alert: This chapter and those subsequent will contain elements from Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Iron Man 3, and Avengers: Age of Ultron.

**_Inlet Bridge, Washington D.C., 5:50 AM_ **

It was looking to be a fine morning. The air was chilly and cool on his slightly perspiring skin, and he heard the chirping of crickets as he jogged across the small bridge leading to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. To his right, the Potomac murmured a steady chant on its sedate march to the ocean. The sky was barely pink on the eastern horizon, and there was not a cloud in sight—promising a clear and sunny day to come.

“On your left.”

Sam Wilson obligingly stepped aside, as a hunk of a man passed him by at thrice the speed of any sane jogger. He blinked, wondering if he’d imagined it, before shaking his head and shifting his focus back to his breathing. In, out, in, out, in time with his steps.

The sky was a lighter shade of blue and brighter on the eastern front as he passed in front of the Memorial. He was humming quietly to himself, pretending that there was music in his head, when—

“On your left!”

Sam couldn’t help a roll of his eyes.

“Uh huh! On my left, got it!” he called back, but the other jogger was already vanishing down the stretch. In the better light he could see that the man was blond, and Sam’s lips stretched into a grin as he realized who it was.

And then it happened again just a few minutes later. Sam was starting to get frustrated. He hadn’t even completed one lap, and  _Captain freaking America_  had already done three.

He was passed once more on his way to the Washington Monument. By this time, Sam just wanted to complete his run before he got lapped again. He was almost there—he just had to round the Reflecting Pool. And then, as he passed in front of the Lincoln Memorial, he heard rapid footsteps behind him  _again_. He looked back, and sure enough, there was Captain Steve Rogers bearing down on him.

“Don’t say it. Don’t you say it—”

“On your left!”

“Oh come on!” Sam exclaimed as he picked up his pace, but it was no use. The Captain had already left him in the dust. He gave it up, groaning as he felt stitches flare down his side, and he collapsed under a tree after finally finishing his  _one_  lap. The pain in his side was nothing compared to his smarting ego, however. Curse his normal human body. This was unfair!

“Need a medic?” The familiar voice called from behind him. Sam laughed wryly as he fought to catch his wind. And of course the Captain was only slightly out of breath. Now he was just rubbing it in.

“I need a new set of lungs. Dude, you just ran like thirteen miles in thirty minutes.”

“I guess I got a late start,” Captain Rogers grinned.

“Huh, really? You should be ashamed of yourself,” Sam said, mock seriously. “You should take another lap.”

Rogers lifted one brow, and Sam did a double take.

“Did you just take—? I assume you just took it.”

Rogers smiled but didn’t answer, instead asking, “What unit are you with?”

“Fifty-eighth, Para-rescue,” Sam replied, “but now I’m working down at the VA.”

Rogers nodded, and Sam lifted a hand in introduction.

“Sam Wilson.”

The Captain took it, pulling him to his feet. “Steve Rogers.”

“Ahhh…I kind of put that together,” Sam grinned. He wondered if he should probe—the Captain obviously had too many people asking him about the same things, after all, but in the end his curiosity got the best of him. “Must have freaked you out, coming home after that whole defrosting thing.”

Rogers’ eyes shuttered. In that moment, he  _looked_  his every year, never mind that the ice had preserved his body in youth. But the Captain said nothing of his unpleasant memories of the War and only sighed wearily as he said, “It takes some getting used to.”

Sam nodded, feeling awkwardly like he intruded where he shouldn’t have, but still wishing to say something—anything—to the man to show that he understood. He dealt with veterans on a daily basis, after all, and he’d seen the look in the Captain’s eyes too many times to count. He put his hands on his hips as he scrubbed his mind for what to say. He was still out of breath.

“It’s good to meet you, Sam,” Rogers gave him a smile and turned to leave.

Sam took a deep breath. “It’s your bed, right?”

Rogers turned back. “What’s that?”

“Your bed, it’s too soft.” Sam stepped up behind him. “When I was over there I slept on the ground and used rock for pillows like a caveman. Now I’m home, lying in my bed and it’s like…”

“Lying on a marshmallow,” Rogers finished for him. “Feel like I’m gonna sink right to the floor.”

Sam gave a small laugh and nodded.  _Now_  they understood each other.  _Now_  they could talk as brothers in arms.

“How long?” Rogers asked.

“Two tours.” Sam answered, crossing his arms in an easy stance. “You must miss the good old days, huh?”

“Well,” Rogers looked thoughtful. “Things aren’t so bad. Food’s a lot better. We used to boil everything. No polio’s good. Internet,” he added, gesturing with a hand, “so helpful. Been reading that a lot, trying to catch up.”

Sam grinned as something occurred to him. “Marvin Gaye, 1972, ‘Trouble Man’ soundtrack. Everything you’ve missed jammed into one album.”

Rogers smiled, a dry quirk to his lips. He pulled out a notebook and pen from his pocket. “I’ll put it on the list.”

He scratched it into the notebook. Above the newest entry, Sam could see about ten other items. He caught a glimpse of “I Love Lucy” at the top and grinned. Now that was a good one.

There was a beeping from Rogers’ pocket. He pulled out a black smartphone and read over the text message. This time Sam knew better than to peek, though he was glad to note that the Captain had caught up on his technology.

“All right, Sam. Duty calls. Thanks for the run.” Rogers extended his hand, and they shook. “If that’s what you wanna call running,” he added.

“Oh, that’s how it is?” Sam pretended to be insulted.

“Ohhhh, that’s how it is.” Rogers grinned back cheekily.

“Okay,” Sam gave an easy laugh. “Any time you wanna stop by the VA and make me look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk, just let me know.”

Rogers nodded and smiled good-naturedly. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

There was the rev of an engine as a sleek black Corvette pulled up to the curb. The windows rolled down. Sam almost whistled in appreciation, both at the car and at the hot redhead behind its wheels.

“Hey fellas,” she purred from her seat. “Either one of you know where the Smithsonian is? I’m here to pick up a fossil.”

“Hilarious,” Rogers told the woman as he got into the car.

“How you doin’,” Sam nodded at her, and the woman returned her own grin and a friendly "hey."

Rogers turned back to him. “Can’t run everywhere,” he said wryly.

“No you can’t,” Sam agreed.

The engine revved, and as the car sped out of sight, Sam could only shake his head in amazement. Well. He hadn’t expected to take his morning jog with a national hero, but it sure made his day interesting. And considering that Steve Rogers was a member of the Avengers, whose Tower had just had a  _most unusual_  accident, that made it  _very_  interesting indeed.

Sam looked at his watch, then to the Capitol, visible from where he was in the National Mall. The hearing was supposed to start around noon. He could grab lunch at his favorite café from across the VA and catch it live as he eat.

And maybe he’d finally get some answers, because that burst of light from Stark Tower sure looked very much like something one of his siblings would do. He raised his head to the now very bright sky.

_I know You put me here for a reason, but can’t You be any clearer than this?_

As always, there was no reply. Sam sighed and lowered his head. Time to get to work. If he was quick, he’d have time for a shower before his first session.

 

 

**_The Cloud Café, 12:15 PM_ **

“ _Mr. Stark, what can you tell us about the incident at Stark Tower?_ ”

“ _Is it true that the arc reactor under the Tower destabilized?_ ”

“ _It was an experimental upgrade,_” the image of Tony Stark on the screen held up his hands. “ _We had a working small scale model. The power on that thing is spectacular, really, but obviously we’re still working out the kinks—_ ”

“ _Then the collapse of the power grid—_ ”

“ _—was just the result of the EM-pulse after we redirected the excess energy into the atmosphere. No lasting damage done. No harm, no foul._ ”

“ _Is a second accident possible? If the reactor is unstable, wouldn’t it be best to consider an evacuation—_ ”

“ _Do you think we kept the unstable core?_ ” Stark gave an exaggerated lift of his eyebrows. “ _I know your IQ isn’t all that stellar, but give me some credit, man._ ”

The volume was turned down low and the chatter of the other patrons made it hard to hear in the small café, but Rumiko Fujikawa was not overly concerned. This was Tony Stark, after all, and anything out of his mouth was liable to be double-speak. She’d already formed her own opinions on what happened at the Tower, but this was the first time in quite a few months that Stark had showed his face in public. It was good to see him well, but…Rumiko found herself nursing a sore ego and a rather vicious streak of anger. Three months, and he hadn’t even the decency to let her know…

She lifted her mug from its placeholder and blew delicately over the top, took a sip—and grimaced. The Sencha tea she'd ordered was disgustingly bland, but America’s Capitol wasn’t known for its tea culture anyway. She put the mug back down, and instead eyed her club sandwich dubiously.

“Not what you expected?” a dry voice asked next to her. She glanced to the right from her place at the bar and found its owner giving her a grin. The man was African-American, with a neatly trimmed beard and an open, friendly face. He wore a dark leather jacket over a camouflage green shirt, and on the left breast of the shirt was printed the logo of the United States Air Force. A military man, Rumiko surmised. A table behind, her bodyguard shifted, but decided that the man posed no threat. Not yet, at least.

“A friend recommended this place to me. I haven’t yet tried the food, but so far the tea is…not very impressive. Although,” she quickly added, her smile wry, “I am quite spoiled for tea, so I probably should not have expected it to live up to my standards.”

“Ah,” the man nodded easily. “Well, I wouldn’t call this place gourmet, but it gives you the most bang for your buck, in my opinion. It’s quality food for the price. D.C. can get a little expensive, unfortunately.”

“Do you come here often, then?” Rumiko asked, finding that she wanted to continue the conversation.

“All the time,” the man gave a light chuckle. “I don’t even need to order anymore. I think the staff here are sick of me, to be honest.” He studied her for a moment, before sticking out his hand. “Sam Wilson.”

Rumiko took it, finding his grip warm and strong, his palm lined with many calluses. “Rumiko Fujikawa.”

Wilson blinked. “Oh. Wow. Uh…not  _the_  Rumiko Fujikawa from Fujikawa Industries?”

“The very same,” Rumiko smiled.

Wilson opened his mouth, paused, and let out a bemused laugh. “Well, how’s this for coincidence? This is the second time today I’ve met a world-famous person.”

“Is that so?” Rumiko raised a brow, mildly interested. “Who else did you meet?”

“I took my morning jog with Captain America,” Wilson grinned almost giddily, his eyes dancing.

At this, Rumiko raised both brows—some coincidence indeed. She felt an uncomfortable twisting in her gut. In her experience, there was no such thing. Keeping her tone unaffected, she asked, “Captain Steve Rogers? Of the Avengers?”

“Yep. Hunk of a man, honestly. Lapped me four times in half an hour. I usually do a circuit around the Parks every morning.” Wilson’s eyes strayed back to the live feed of Tony Stark’s hearing, and Rumiko followed it. “You watch them on the news, see all they do and it’s…intimidating, when you actually meet them, but he’s nice enough in person.”

“Am I intimidating you, then?” Rumiko asked, just a touch of teasing in her tone.

Wilson spared her a glance. “You’re nice enough in person too, I suppose,” he replied with cheek.

Rumiko picked up her sandwich. She took a bite, and was pleasantly surprised. The bread was moist, but not soggy, the lettuce crisp and the meat tender and flavorful.

“This is not bad,” she gave, “I can see why you’re a frequent customer.”

“Well, I work across the street at the VA, so it’s convenient.”

Rumiko nodded, eyeing the emblem on his shirt—a parachute shaped as a shield, an angel embracing the world at its center. Underneath it read a motto, “that others may live.” A sign, perhaps? she mused. A good omen for the purpose of her travel? She made a mental note right then to look into this Sam Wilson character later.  _Someone_  most certainly wanted them to meet.

“You are military, I take it?” she asked, indicating his shirt.

“Were. Served two tours as a PJ before shipping back here.” Wilson’s answer was a tad wistful. “I miss it sometimes—the people, not the crappy holes we were usually dropped into—but it’s a nice change. I needed a change in my life.”

They lapsed into silence. Wilson’s attention had returned to the newscast, and Rumiko took her time with her lunch, glancing up when she saw a commotion in the normally orderly chamber.

“ _Well, we have an interesting development here,_ ” the commentator was saying, as pictures of Tony Stark and Iron Man came up on the screen, side-by-side. “ _Senator Stern, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, has just released a statement along with a report that held strong evidence suggesting that Tony Stark is Iron Man. According to the report, the energy readings from the suit matches that of the arc reactor, dating back to 2009, which was when Tony Stark had been held captive in Afghanistan by the terror group then known as the Ten Rings…_ ”

Rumiko frowned. Though she had not confirmed it, she’d already known who Iron Man was. How could she not? There was only one person who remotely fit the bill. But, for his identity to be revealed now…

“Wow,” Wilson commented offhandedly, “that got real.”

“I am not surprised,” Rumiko said dryly.

“Neither am I,” Wilson said. “I think pretty much everybody already knows. Stark’s the only one capable of tech like that, and the Avengers use his Tower as their base.”

The feed had moved back to the hearing, and one of the Senators was giving a rather long and scathing remark on Stark Industries’ safety protocols. When the camera panned to Stark, he was busily tapping into his phone. Stark had not given any outward reaction, but the grim set of his jaw and the hard lines around his eyes told Rumiko that he was furious.

“Do you follow the Avengers at all, Miss Fujikawa?” Wilson asked casually, his eyes on the screen.

“Please, Rumiko is fine. And yes, I do.” Rumiko took another sip of her tea, but by this time it had cooled, and she pushed it away with a sour look. “I happen to know Mr. Stark personally. How about you?”

“Well, Rumiko, I admit to being a fan,” Wilson grinned. “Bit of a bummer, though, what happened to the Tower,” he added with a sigh.

“Knowing Stark, he will just rebuild the thing to be even more of an eyesore,” Rumiko said drolly. Wilson laughed, deep and mellow, and she found herself chuckling along. It was easy to let herself relax here, with the comfortable banter between them, and she marveled that they were able to strike up conversation like old friends, even though they had just met. America possessed such an open atmosphere compared to Japan, such a wide difference in culture…

The news feed switched to commercials, but the happenings on Capitol Hill had lost her interest, and for the next half hour she enjoyed deepening her acquaintance with Sam Wilson. She learned that he was an avid cook, an accomplished jazz pianist, a lover of heroes in comics and in life, and that he had an almost unhealthy obsession with extreme sports and generally any activity that involved jumping off of high, dangerous places.

“Guess I found my dream job,” he said wryly when she pointed out how he suited the Air Force.

“Then why quit?”

Wilson sobered. He licked his lips, and his eyes were shadowed as he spoke. “I lost my wingman. Just…couldn’t find a reason to continue, I suppose. I wasn’t in the best state of mind, you see, and staying there would have only compromised the team.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hazards of the job,” Wilson shrugged, his smile sad, “but now I get to help others, help them deal, you know? Coming back is hard, but it helps if you have people around who have been through the same thing. We’ve all got the same problems. I just want them to know that they’re not alone, and that it’s okay to ask for help. I guess you could say I found my second calling.”

“That’s very noble.” Rumiko had meant it sincerely, but an uneasy look crossed Wilson’s face.

“Too high a compliment for me, ma’am,” he gave a small, self-deprecating chuckle, almost a scoff. “I’m just trying to do right in this life.”

“As we all are, I suppose,” Rumiko allowed his dodge. She wouldn’t pry, not when she could see a wounded soul.

Wilson sighed, glancing at his watch. “Well, I hate to leave a conversation with a classy lady, but I’m afraid my lunch break is up.”

“I am about finished as well. Do not let me keep you,” Rumiko said as the both of them stood. She held out her hand first this time. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sam. Thank you for the chat. I enjoyed it.”

Wilson grinned as they shook once more. “Pleasure’s all mine. And,” he added with a wink, “may I suggest the Long Island Strawberry next time. It’s probably not what you’re used to, but I hope you’ll give it a try.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, if I happen to visit again,” Rumiko promised with a smile, and Wilson took his leave.

She let out a breath, glanced back up at the television, and frowned when the image blurred for a moment, static rising at its edges.

“ _Are we ready to go, ma’am?_ ” her bodyguard-driver-butler asked in quiet Japanese.

“ _Yes. Please bring the car to the front, Hiroto-san._ ”

“ _Hai,_ ” he nodded, and went to do as she’d directed.

Rumiko spared a last glance at the screen, raising an eyebrow when she saw that a break had been called to the proceedings. The Senator who chaired the committee had a rather large stain on his shirt, black ink spreading from his front pocket and even onto his blue-dotted tie. Rumiko rolled her eyes. If  _he_  had nothing to do with it, she would sell her company to Stark Industries.

 ****When she was comfortably seated in the back of her black sedan, Hiroto asked, “ _The Capitol?_ ”

Rumiko tapped her chin. “ _No,_ ” she decided abruptly. “ _No, I think I will wait a little longer. Let’s meet with my investors first, then I’ll deal with Stark._ ”

Yes, that was a far better idea. Otherwise, she was likely to ruin the company with her temper.

 

 

_**United States Capitol, 12:46 PM** _

The hearing turned out to be as much of a farce as Tony had imagined. These people didn’t care about what happened in New York as much as they cared for getting their hands on his technology, and all the nonsense that they spouted about the need for safety and supervision was just a ruse, he suspected, to get under his skin. And Stern had succeeded quite spectacularly in that. The sleazy bastard was getting back at him about last time, obviously, but what worried Tony was not that his identity was outed (because really, it was an open secret) but how Stern had done it. The data in the report had been the same data that Fury had used to confirm his identity, and that meant that either S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted to knock him down a peg, or they had a leak.

Either way, that left him very pissed off.

But one thing at a time. He’d spent the past half hour or so using his phone to root through Stern’s private files and emails, and he’d already amassed enough information to ruin the man’s career. Tony pursed his lips as he studied the Senator. How to get him alone to talk…?

He spied the fountain pen nestled in Stern’s shirt pocket, and an idea struck him. Not as flashy as he would’ve liked, but it would do the job. He focused on the ink in the cartridge—

—and had to suck in a breath when his Grace  _flared_  in protest. It had been several days, but the soreness from whatever Joel had done to him had never fully gone away, and he could feel where his brother’s Grace was still tightly wound against him—stitches that held him together, but ones that itched and burned. He exhaled a shaky breath, thankful that nothing too disastrous had happened for his slip of control. The lights flickered very faintly, but only a few people glanced up.

He needed to speak with his brother about it later. This  _cannot_  be normal.

He sighed. Using his Grace was out of the question, but he still needed the Senator alone, so he instead reached out and tuned in to the frequency of Joel’s Grace that was always humming at the back of his mind.

_Hey bro, you got a minute?_

_What is it?_ his brother’s response was immediate.

_I need you for something. Get over here, and don’t let anyone see you._

There was just the barest shift in the air before Joel appeared next to him. _What is it?_  he asked again, glancing at the chamber at large. No one even looked his way, invisible as he was to all but Gabriel.

 _The good Senator’s pen,_ Gabriel indicated Stern’s pocket. _I want you to let the ink run onto his very expensive suit._

Joel raised a bemused brow. _You called me from my search for this?_ he managed to sound disapproving even without speaking.

 _Well, yes, since I can’t very well do it myself,_ Gabriel replied. _I’m off exercise by your orders, remember? So you’re the only one who’s got mojo to swing around._

_I must conserve my Grace as well. I am cut off._

_Oh, come on, this won’t take you any effort._

_It is a waste._

_Totally going to be worth it. Just you watch._

Joel stared at him with a critical eye.

_This is important, all right? Just do as I say, and you can get back to your scavenger hunt._

One of Joel’s wings twitched in irritation, but ten seconds later, there was a blossom of black ink on Stern’s nicely laundered suit.

 _Excellently done,_  he informed Joel, who refused to dignify him with an answer and instead disappeared with a barely audible flutter back to wherever he’d been. Tony rolled his eyes. He really needed to get that stick out of his brother’s rear. He turned, and watched with great satisfaction as Stern called for a short break and hastily beat a retreat to the washroom. Time for Phase II of his plan.

He sidled in quietly after Stern, made sure that they were alone, and locked the door behind him. He gave a whistle as he appraised the large patch of black that covered the left of his shirt. “Wardrobe malfunction much?”

The Senator spun around, startled.

“Shh,” Tony put up a finger to his lips. “Don’t make a fuss, and this will go well for you.”

“Mr. Stark? You…what are you doing?”

“Relax. I won’t hurt you…maybe.” Tony gave a grin, enjoying the way Stern uncomfortably shuffled back to the far wall.

“What do you want?”

“Just to talk,” Tony fished out his phone from his pocket, scrolling for one of the more juicy emails he’d come across. “You’ve made my life very inconvenient. Thought I’d return the favor. You know, you really should be more careful with how you talk about other people behind their backs. Boy, if they know what I know…”

Stern paled, turning his normally ruddy face to a blotchy shade of pasty pink.

“…and I know all sorts of things,” Tony continued airily. “Miss Rudy…” he made a show of trying to pronounce her name, “A-U-E-R. Ow-er? Or-er? Hm. Is that the cute Senate aide who brought you your cup of joe earlier? You know, I’m sure that working for you is peachy and all, but I’m also pretty sure that she won’t appreciate being called…how did you put it—” he squinted “—a ‘dimwit who only knows how to sleep her way through a promotion—’”

“Where did you get that?” Stern snapped.

“—well that’s a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen,” Tony ignored him, continuing, “and let’s see what I’ve got on your very dear colleague, the Senate Minority Leader. You said that he was a…uh…an ‘asshole’, and a ‘good for nothing—’”

“Where did you get—”

“Does it matter where? Only matters that I’ve got it, and there’s more where this came from. Couple laundered millions sitting in the Caymans? Does that ring a bell?”

Stern’s complexion now resembled the color of puce.

“I know a few places on the Internet where I can dump this. So,” Tony clapped his hands together and bounced on the balls of his feet, “why don’t we call off this farcical display you call a hearing, which we all know is just a giant tantrum for you…or the Feds be knockin’ on your door soon.”

“This is blackmail.”

Tony rolled his eyes. “Oh please. Like you haven’t done it before. In fact, I think I saw an email earlier…”

“All right, all right! What do you want?”

“I thought I made that pretty clear. Man, you’re even slower than I thought.” Tony crossed his arms, tapping his phone absently with a finger. He let his cheery mask melt away and replaced it with a dangerous smirk. “You got some nerve, doing what you did. Tell me, who gave you the data?”

“Nobody—”

“Bull. You aren’t half as smart as my greenest intern, and they don’t have the capabilities of obtaining those readings. Who gave them to you?”

“Look, it was an anonymous tip—”

Tony held up the phone, “Feds be knockin’.”

“Okay! All right!” Stern sputtered. “I have contacts in the Department of Defense! It was someone in their Sci-Tech division!”

“Who?”

“I don’t know! I swear to you, I don’t know! My contact uses an encrypted line! I got the data from a dead drop! I’ve never even heard their real voice, I don’t know who they are!”

Tony narrowed his eyes. He was telling the truth, though not the entire truth. But it didn’t matter, because that all but confirmed his suspicions.

“Call off the hearing,” Tony told him pitilessly. “From now on, you stay out of my hair, I’ll let you keep your seat in Congress. If you come after me again—or anyone on my team, for that matter—I will sink your career so fast that the  _Titanic_  will seem like a day trip. Are we understood?”

Stern’s throat worked furiously, and Tony half wondered if the man would choke. He pulled out a napkin from his pocket and handed it to the Senator with a cool smile. “Here. Keep the napkin. Don’t want you going out there with ink everywhere.” Then he turned, unlocked the door, and marched out.

Pepper found him in the hallway. “Tony—”

“I know,” he gave her a grim smile, “but don’t worry about it. It’s handled.”

“Handled?”

“When Stern comes back, you’ll see.”

 

 

_**Office of the Undersecretary, the Triskelion, 3:20 PM** _

Alexander Pierce steepled his fingers together, leaning forward in his dark leather seat. Sitting across from his desk, his companion scrolled through the contents of a handheld tablet, absorbed by his reading. Pierce glanced at the headlines, reading them upside down as they flashed past the screen.

Iron Man Identity Revealed

Billionaire Inventor's Alter Ego: Tony Stark Is Iron Man?

Stunning Report Reveals Stark as Member of Avengers

A dozen more similar titles rolled by, before his companion paused on one. 

Stern Calls for Halt to Inquiries into Stark Industries

Pierce smirked, turning to glance out the darkened windows. In the distance, the spire of the Capitol gleamed in the sunlight. Their Senator friend had done exactly what they had intended for him to do. He was well aware that he’d poked a hornet’s nest, but fortunately for them, there was someone to take the fall.

His companion cleared his throat, and Pierce turned, reaching for the tablet as it was handed back to him.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“It was risky,” came the reply. “Stern called. The data—was it wise to use it? Now Stark’s suspicious of us.”

“No, he’s suspicious of S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s a risk worth taking, if we play this right.”

“But on Fury’s end…”

“You let me worry about him,” Pierce said, his countenance darkening. Nicholas Fury had been a thorn in his side for far too long, but he couldn’t make his move yet. Their resources had been decimated, and he was in sore need of new recruits. “Your job is distraction. You still have your Extremis enhanced soldiers, don’t you? Use them.”

Aldrich Killian scowled. “I only have so many. It’s not like they’re reusable.”

“Then find more,” Pierce said cooly. “I pay you for a reason.”

“You could bring the Winter Soldier out,” Killian pointed out.

“In due time,” Pierce waved his hand. “He’ll be a key player when we accelerate our plans. For now, I need  _time_. Time, and information. Get me some.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“You met him in Bern, didn’t you? Use that to get close to him. Better yet, I need an in at the Tower. That stupid A.I. of his is keeping even Ultron out. Ironic, though, since he built the thing.”

Killian’s lips twisted with distaste. “I didn’t exactly make a good impression.”

“Make a better one.”

Killian still looked reluctant. “He doesn’t seem like that much of a threat. Are you sure he’s one of them?”

“I’m positive.” Pierce turned his mouth down. “How many times do I have to tell you? Only one of the Four can destroy the Leviathans.”

“Then what’s the point? If you already know—”

“I don’t  _know_ ,” Pierce scowled. Did he have to explain everything to this whining simpleton? “I have a fairly educated guess. I need more information to be sure. Though to be fair, big brother would probably not be so flamboyant,” he added as an afterthought.

Killian snorted. “I find it hard to believe that any of them would masquerade as a human.”

Pierce raised a brow. “Aren’t we?”

His companion’s eyes narrowed. “Only as a necessity.”

“Humans have their uses,” Pierce said dismissively. “But we’re getting off topic. What do you think of his reaction?”

“It was more subtle than I expected.”

“Yes, it does seem a bit understated for him, doesn’t it?” Pierce said dryly. “But we have his measure now. His carelessness will be our boon.”

There was a knock at the door. His aide poked her head in. “Sir, the Council is waiting.”

Pierce nodded to her. “I’ll be right there.” He stood, letting out a breath. “Well, time to grease the wheels.” He flashed a smirk. “I suggest you get on yours.”

“I can handle myself.”

The two left the office. They parted ways at a junction in the hallway, but Pierce paused after a step.

“Aldrich.”

Killian turned. “You have something else for me?”

“A warning.” Pierce let his voice drop. “This is one of  _them_  we’re talking about. I’ve delayed everything because one misstep can mean the end of all we’ve worked for. Don’t get cocky, or you’ll find yourself smote.”


	6. Strange Events

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world has gotten even more dangerous and strange since the disappearances. Tony's entire life has been turned upside down, but for Phil, it's just another day at work.

_**Three Months Ago** _

He had to go and turn on the TV.

The man on the screen wore a matted beard down to his chest, and his wiry hair was tied back in a knot at the top of his skull. He spoke into the camera, his voice low and his eyes ominously obscured by a pair of dark glasses.

“ _Some people call me a terrorist, I consider myself a teacher. America…ready for another lesson?_ ”

The screen shook, and images of bombed out buildings flashed by, fire and smoke rising from crevices in a billowing cloud.

“ _Thirty-nine hours ago the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait was attacked. I…I…I did that. A quaint military church filled with wives and children, of course. The soldiers were out on maneuvers, the braves were away. President Ellis, you continue to resist my attempts to educate you, sir. And now, you’ve missed me again. You know who I am, you don’t know where I am, and you’ll never see me coming._ ”

He’d just wanted some mind-numbing show to distract himself from…from…all of  _that_. And then  _this_  happened.

Rhodey had to know something, so Tony dragged him out for dinner one evening. He had to get away from the Tower, from that place he didn’t even remember building. From…everybody. Pepper’s red-rimmed eyes and Happy’s worried looks and…and…people he didn’t know living underneath his floor. Dr. Bruce Banner, The Authority in gamma-ray radiation and particle physics. Two alien Norse gods who just wouldn’t shut up about…about  _not-him_. And oh yeah, the Star-Spangled Captain himself.

Oh, and the kids. The kids. And Jarvis.

So Tony dragged Rhodey out for dinner. He’d intended to get them both smashed like they did back in college, but Rhodey was adamant on not drinking. Something about alcohol was not good for his brain, and he wanted Tony to have the best chance of recovering his memories, thank you very much.

“What if I don’t want to remember?” Tony said acerbically.

Rhodey looked at him like that was the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. “You want to remember. Don’t deny it, Tones. You’ve always been too curious for your own good.”

Damn Rhodey. He knew him too well.

On one screen to the left of their table, the POTUS was addressing the American people about the Mandarin Threat. On another screen, Bill Maher was mocking both the terrorist and the president in the same breath. Directly across from them at the far end of the bar was a replay of the footage that he’d already seen.

“Man, he is butt-ugly,” Tony commented.

Rhodey gave him a deadpan stare. “Really? All of that and the only thing you have to say is about his looks?”

“Hey, I’ll say whatever I want. This is the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, last time I checked.” Tony leaned back and took a sip of his coke. Stupid Rhodey wouldn’t even let him get a beer.

“Mm-hm. And we work hard to make it stay that way. Don’t make our jobs harder.”

“I would never.”

“Yeah, you would. Knowing you, you’d go and antagonize a terrorist just because you think they’re ugly.”

Tony lost his retort somewhere between the band starting up and their food arriving. He was starving, and the fried chicken smelled greasy and fabulous and the chocolate milkshake looked like it would give him a heart attack—in other words, heavenly.

Rhodey snorted. “Should’ve figured that food would shut you up.”

Not for long, Tony thought between bites. Nothing could ever shut him up for long.

The food was a great distraction, but there were too many people around them and it was a little too loud, and things were moving too fast, and…

He washed down his piece of chicken with chocolate and scooted closer to Rhodey. His brain was too empty. He had to fill it with talk.

“So what’s really goin’ on? With Mandarin. Seriously, can we talk about this guy?”

Rhodey grimaced at him. “It’s classified information, Tony.” He paused, then lowered his voice. “Okay, there have been nine bombings.”

Tony stared. “Nine.”

“The public only knows about three. But here’s the thing, nobody can ID a device. There’s no bomb casings.” Rhodey looked at him. “Why are you asking? I thought you wanted out.”

“I didn’t say that, I—”

“Then what’s with avoiding the team? Look, nobody says you have to get back in immediately, but you have to make a decision. You can’t just leave everybody hangin’.”

“Can we not talk about that right now? I’m paying for your dinner.”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“The Mandarin. Not the team. Look, I can’t—I can’t—I can’t be in the field, but I can still build equipment. I got…I got bomb disposal units.”

“When’s the last time you got a good night’s sleep?” Rhodey asked him instead.

Tony scoffed. “Einstein slept three hours a year. Look what he did.”

Rhodey just shook his head. “People are concerned about you, Tony. I’m concerned about you.”

“You’re gonna come at me like that?” Apparently Rhodey was not above being patronizing. Tony felt his temper rise.

“No, I’m asking for the team because you won’t talk to them.”

“Seriously. Stop. Talking. About the team.”

“I can’t. The team’s not complete without Iron Man.”

“They’re doing fine without me!”

“No they’re not. You know they’re not.”

“Stop it!” He finally snapped. He couldn’t take this. He stood up. He was regretting cold chocolate on top of greasy chicken now. He needed…he needed air. Yeah, air. Outside. Outside had plenty of air.

Rhodey followed him out. That was not what he wanted.

“Tony, come on.”

Tony spun around. “No,  _he_  built the suit, okay? Not me.”

“No.  _You_  built the suit.”

“I didn’t! How many times to do I have to tell you? He’s not me! Whatever you think that guy is, I’m not him!”

“Tony!” Rhodey caught him by the shoulders. “Tony, listen to me. Iron Man was all you, okay? It’s all you. You remember when we were back at MIT and you showed me Dummy? That’s you. Iron Man is the same you. Doesn’t matter if you went and angel-ed up when you built it. Still you. From back then. Same you.”

Tony said nothing. He breathed in. He breathed out. His heart pounded in his chest and he felt weak. He sat down on the bench lining the front window, suddenly dizzy. His dinner seemed to want to come back up.

“Dude, d-d-did you spike my drink?”

“What?” Rhodey blinked.

“I-I-I…”

He clutched his chest. Was he really having a heart attack? Had his years of bad eating habits finally come back to bite him? Oh no. No. He wasn’t going to die here.

“I need a doctor, I need—”

Rhodey slapped his face suddenly. “Breathe. Tony. You’re panicking. Just breathe.”

Tony did as he was told. In. Out. In. Out. His breaths gradually slowed.

“See? Just a panic attack. You’re good.”

He looked askance at Rhodey. “Me? Panic attack?”

Rhodey just raised an eyebrow at him. Tony dropped his eyes back to the ground.

“Well. That was embarrassing.”

“Oh please. That can’t have been worse than that time you got us lost at Bertucci’s—”

“I thought we agreed never to talk about that.”

“Yes we did. I’m sorry.”

The silence that fell then didn’t seem as suffocating.

“Listen, the Pentagon is scared,” Rhodey told him after a while. “All the top government people suddenly disappearing? They’ve explained it away as an alien invasion, but we both know what really happened. If they find out…” Rhodey’s voice got even quieter, if that was possible. “People are scared, Tony. The DOJ—they know they don’t have the capabilities of dealing with a threat like that again. The Avengers are the only defense we have right now.”

“I…Rhodey, I-I-I can’t be Iron Man. I’m not a hero.”

“Nobody says you have to be. Jarvis can pilot the suit, can’t he?”

Yes, but…Jarvis. Jarvis with a body. He wasn’t supposed to have a body. He didn’t know what to think about it. And Rhodey was right. The suit was his. The arc reactor…that was his baby, the jewel crowning all his achievements, forged from months of blood and sweat in the hellish bowels of Afghanistan.

“No. No…I want…you’re right. Jarvis can do it, but I want somebody…” Somebody he knew. He looked up at Rhodey again. “You. Can you fly it?”

Rhodey looked stunned for a moment. “Me?”

“JARVIS—” and he meant JARVIS the A.I. “—he can show you the works. It’ll be…it’ll be fine.”

Rhodey stared back at him. “Let me get the check,” he said abruptly. “This can’t be decided over dinner.”

 

_**Two Months Ago** _

He managed to convince Rhodey to take the suit.

His days passed by in a routine. He’d get up, shower and eat, go to his office and delete all the emails Pepper sent his way, go down to R&D to destroy the self-confidence of a few hapless interns, then hole himself up in his workshop for the rest of the day until dinner. Then he’d try his best to avoid everyone until he could escape back to his room to sleep, and he’d wake up the next day to do it all over again.

He never could manage to keep himself isolated for long. Someone always found him, although they wisely kept their trap shut about how he was doing. They talked to him about inane things. Hey, how’s the new project going? Did you watch the game last night? How ‘bout that Hail Mary at the last minute, huh? Can’t believe they actually pulled through. Everything’s fine, thank you. Don’t worry about the team, we’ve got it handled.

Nobody asked him if he remembered anything, and Tony was grateful.

But one day, a few weeks into his self-imposed exile, the kids somehow did the one thing that even Rhodey hadn’t been able to manage.

Tony was in his workshop when they showed up, huddling together as if to block something from his view. Dummy took point; Butterfingers and You flanked him on either side, and Jarvis stood as the rearguard. From the way they held themselves, one would think they regarded entering his workshop as entering a warzone.

Maybe it was. He sure hadn’t been the most friendly of sorts in the past month.

Dummy had on a familiar cap—a white cone with the words “DUNCE” written on it in black marker ink. Tony blinked when he saw it.

“Where’d you get that?” The words blurted out of his mouth before he could think.

Dummy bit his lips, then he took a step to the side. On a rolling utility cart were various robotic parts—very familiar robotic parts.

“I had them shipped here from Malibu, sir,” Jarvis explained.

Tony just stared.

“You promised us new upgrades,” Dummy’s voice was very small. “I…I know you don’t remember, but Jarvis has the backup for the designs, so we were hoping…”

He somehow managed to remember to breathe. “L-Let’s see them,” he stammered, then cleared his throat. “Uh…Jarvis, pull the files up for me, would you?”

“ _Of course, sir._ ” The disembodied voice was JARVIS, not the very flesh-and-bone Jarvis standing next to the kids. Tony shot him a quick look, but he only gave a small but sad smile in return.

The holograms popped up, and he saw what could only be  _his_  designs. He recognized what could only be  _his_  code. He didn’t remember ever writing it, but he’d know it anywhere.

“Okay,” he took in a shaky breath. “Okay, we can work with this. I’ll have you all looking fan-spiffin’-tastic in no time flat.”

The smile on Dummy’s face was brilliant. And there, in his workshop, in his element, Tony almost forgot to be uncomfortable. And at the end of the day, when the newly machined parts were installed and they delightedly hugged him in turns, he realized that he had stopped thinking of them as  _the_  kids. Somewhere in the past few hours, they had become  _his_  kids.

That thought scared him a little. Okay, a lot. But he didn’t regret it. He could definitely do this.

“You thinkin’ about putting the suit back on?”

Okay, maybe not that. Tony hastily shut down the hologram of the Mark 16 that he’d been fiddling with for the last twenty minutes and turned around to face Rhodey.

“You don’t usually come down here,” he complained at his best friend.

“Well, it is past eight o’clock and you never came up for dinner.”

It was? He looked at the time display. It was.

“ _You’ve been ignoring my reminders, sir. I thought an intervention was in order,_ ” JARVIS said from overhead. Tony scowled at the ceiling. Now he preferred Jarvis with a face. At least that gave him a target.

“Yeah, I’ll be up in a minute,” he mumbled, then glared at Rhodey. “Happy now?”

Rhodey shrugged as they made for the elevator. “Hey, I just got drafted. You’ll have a new mom tomorrow.” He paused. “Tony, I have to get back to Washington. You gonna be okay without me?”

Tony chuckled. “I think I’ll manage, mom.”

“Oh, don’t start that now.”

“Hey, I didn’t. You did.”

Rhodey made to retort, then closed his mouth.

“But if you’re gone, what…uh…what’ll happen to Iron Man?” Tony asked.

“It’s  _your_  suit,” Rhodey pointed out. “Of course, if you’re not ready, you’re not ready. The team will adjust, and there’s still Jarvis.”

Right. Tony sighed and rubbed his face. “I don’t think I can do this right now.”

“So Jarvis?”

“Yeah.” The door opened up to the penthouse level, but Tony stayed in the vestibule. “I need a minute. Sorry.”

Rhodey put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Hey. Angel or not, Iron Man or not, you’ll always be Tony to us. Don’t rush, okay? The suit’s still gonna be waiting for you once you get your head sorted out.”

Tony gave him a smile, grateful. “Thanks.”

And when he was fed and full he found himself roped into a game of monopoly, and the team became more than faces and names. Steve and Bruce (not the Captain and Dr. Banner anymore) paired up together, and Natasha and Clint (not Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton) formed their own alliance, and Tony (with twelve percent of help from Pepper) easily and hostilely took over their holdings and won. Rhodey refused to play, having learned his lesson back in college.

“So,” Clint began hesitantly when they had cleared the game away. “How’s…uh…how’s everything feeling?”

Tony tensed for a moment, then he reminded himself to relax, because, really, what  _was_  there to be scared of? He was among friends. Yeah. Friends.

“Nothing’s changed,” he replied honestly. “I really can’t tell you much.”

“They said everything’s fine when he went for his last exam,” Pepper said. “It’s…it’s only been a month, after all.”

They didn’t look surprised, but the disappointment was clear on their faces, and Tony squirmed. “I…uh…I-I’ve been looking at the blueprints for…for the suit. I’ve got some ideas. Jarvis can pilot, and I can…uh…”

“We’re not trying to make you do anything you’re not ready for, Tony,” Steve said kindly. “You don’t have to force yourself.”

“I don’t want to be—” Useless. He’d seen what the team did, and he’d be wholeheartedly on board with it if he didn’t feel so…so…out of place. “I want to—I want to help. I can still help.”

“Actually, I might have an idea,” Natasha spoke up slowly. “I’ve been wanting to broach this to you for a while. It’s something the Director told me about—an old project your father started but never finished.”

Tony hesitated. An old ache still remained where it concerned Howard Stark, but…

It was his old man, after all, and if Tony knew anything about his father, it was that the man was brilliant.

“What project?”

“It’s called the Ultron Program. An artificial intelligence, first of its kind. It’s meant to be used for national defense. The Director thought that since you’re an expert in the field, you might be interested in taking a look at it.”

Tony thought it over. He should’ve known that his old man had been on the cutting edge of A.I. technology even back when computers were just starting to become a thing. And the more he thought about it, the more he was intrigued. He’d solved the puzzle, but it would be…fun, to see how his father had approached it.

“Yeah,” he said to Natasha, “I want to see it. Tell him I’m interested.”

 

_**One Month Ago** _

He was in D.C. putting the final touches on Ultron when things went to fritz in New York.

“So…what exactly happened?” he asked Bruce, who had been the only Avenger in town that night, and who had wisely kept out of the fray. Steve, Clint, and Natasha were in Russia on a mission for S.H.I.E.L.D., Jarvis and his kids had followed him to D.C., and Thor and Loki were back on Asgard.

“Curtis Connors,” Bruce tossed a file at him, and Tony deftly caught the hologram and expanded it. “A former lead scientist at Oscorp. The story is bio-terrorism. They say that he went a bit cuckoo after he got fired, so he set up a rig to gas the entire population of Lower Manhattan. I got called in to consult. It’s some sort of aerosolized serum containing a mutagen derived from lizard DNA. Once it’s in the system, the serum changes the physiology of the victim down at the cellular level, and they start developing lizard-like characteristics—scales and tails and the whole works. Even regeneration of lost limbs becomes possible. It’s actually…actually very similar to the way the uh…the Other Guy works. The principle’s the same. All based in gamma radiation.”

“But the effects are reversible?”

“Yeah. And, before you ask—I already checked. The antidote isn't gonna work on me.”

“Ah,” Tony gave him a sympathetic look.

Bruce just shrugged with a weak smile. “Yeah, I had my hopes up for a second too.”

“So who took him down?” Tony asked. “You sure didn’t.”

“Heh, I didn’t want to break the city again,” Bruce chuckled. “There’s somebody new on the scene.”

“Yeah. They’re calling him Spider-Man, right? I saw it on the news.”

“Well then why’re you asking?”

“I thought maybe you know who he is.”

“Why would I?” Bruce’s voice was a bit incredulous. “I’m not Fury. I don’t keep tabs on these things. I was gonna ask if you had any idea. Didn’t you just get back from his place?”

“D.C.’s hardly his place.”

“But you were at S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters.”

“Yeah, and he hates my guts, and I hate his,” Tony informed him flatly. “I was there a week and we didn’t even meet in person. So no, I didn’t ask him.”

Well, hate was a strong word. His relationship with the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. was more like…complete disregard on his part, and extreme annoyance on Fury’s. And even if he asked, he had a feeling he wouldn’t get much in terms of relevant answers. Fury was the type of man who didn’t like to share information.

But as always, his curiosity got the better of him. There was very little chance that S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn’t kept an eye on a player like Spider-Man, so when he unpacked and settled back into his penthouse, he proposed a game of “capture the file” to his kids.

Dummy, Butterfingers, and You were delighted. Jarvis…mildly amused.

“Sir, might I remind you of what happened the last time Director Fury caught you exploring his servers?”

“Ah, don’t be a spoilsport, Jarvis. Come on, winner gets to decide what we have for dinner. Ready? Set…and go!”

They were in within the hour. And Jarvis won. Unfortunately, Tony found himself in last place, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t really fair to compare physical typing speed to an A.I.’s processing power anyway.

“I believe this is what you’re looking for, sir?” Jarvis said with a veiled air of triumph as he slid a file over. Tony snatched it out of the air and opened it with a flick of his fingers.

“Aw,” Dummy sighed. “I was so close.”

“I was further than you,” Butterfingers said proudly.

“Not further than me,” said You. Butterfingers made a face at him.

“Kids, no fighting,” Tony said absently. He read the file out loud to himself. “Peter Parker…15 years old?” He raised his eyebrows. Some kid in high school was Spider-Man? Oh, Clint will flip if he saw this. “Huh, information on his parents is redacted. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Let’s see…won the Thompson Biophysics Award as a freshman…finished the year with high honors…kid’s got some brains.”

Parker had stellar grades, not counting the few months after his uncle died. Maybe he’d look into recruiting the kid for his company.

“Well,” he flattened the file and tossed it to Jarvis to be archived. “I say that is mission accomplished. What do you have in mind for dinner, Jarvis?”

Jarvis looked abashed suddenly. “Sir, if you don’t mind…I was hoping to wait until the others returned. I believe they could use something to wind down from their mission.”

Tony blinked. A month ago he would’ve refused, but…now a dinner night with the team didn’t sound too bad.

“Sure, Jarvis, we can do that,” he said with a grin. “But my stomach’s worrying about tonight.”

“Oh, oh, oh!” Dummy jumped up. “Can we go to the new mall in Uptown? With the roller skate park?”

“Sure, Dummy, sure.”

And when those away had returned, Jarvis’ proposal was met with sound approval. For once, Tony didn’t feel awkward sitting down at a table with everybody, and he’d gladly shared his findings with the team.

“You’ve been rooting around S.H.I.E.L.D. servers  _again_ , Tony?” Natasha said exasperatedly. “You know you’re going to drive the Director insane.”

“That’s the plan,” Tony said with a saucy grin.

“Leave it, Natasha, he’s incurable,” Bruce rolled his eyes.

“So, wait, let me get this straight,” Clint’s head was in one hand, and he was holding up the other under the hanging lamp of the booth they shared. “Spider-Man is a fifteen-year-old  _kid_?”

“I know, right?”

“What the hell is a high schooler doing swinging around New York in  _spandex_?”

“I kind of like the colors,” Steve commented.

Tony looked at him, horrified. “Steve,  _please_  say you’re joking.”

Steve only grinned at him, eyes twinkling. Off to the side, the kids sniggered under their breaths.

“How are we going to explain to the Director that we know about Parker?” Natasha sighed to Clint. “We haven’t been read in. He’s going to be pissed.”

Clint pointed his thumb at Tony. “That’s easy, Nat. We’ll just blame it on him.”

“Oh, that’s how it is? You all are gonna turn around and stab me in the back after I just provided valuable intel?” Tony put up an affronted air.

“It’s your own fault.”

“Traitors.”

Yeah, he could get used to the banter. After months of awkward conversational dances, he finally felt like part of the team. And speaking of which…

“I’m thinking…um, I’m thinking of trying out the suit, actually,” he told them over dessert.

Clint choked on the oreo topping his sundae.

“Tony, are you sure?” Steve looked at him with searching eyes. “We’re not trying to push you into anything. You know that, right?”

“Yeah. Yeah, and I appreciate that,” Tony took a deep breath. “I…uh…I’ll just do a test flight first. Baby steps, you know? But I think…I think…if-if-if you’ll have me, I’d like to be a part of the team.”

“Of course we’ll have you,” Natasha said, a corner of her mouth lifting.

“Why…ahem—” Clint was still working on clearing his windpipe “—why…uh…why the change of heart?”

“Well,” Tony worked his mouth, trying not to grin, “being an Avenger sounds cool. And I’m not getting shown up by a high school kid.”

 

_**Present Day** _

The Director’s office was large. Well, Phil wouldn’t call his own 200 square feet of workspace  _small_ , but it did get confining at times, especially with no windows. But when they had to choose their spaces Maria had grabbed the one with the view, and Phil was too much of a gentlemen to fight her for it.

Of course, the boss’ office had a great view. The man was standing against the windows now, his profile stark against the bright skyline of Washington. Even with his face half turned away Phil could still see the scowl. Fury was not in a good mood, and he knew the reason—Stark.

To be fair, it wasn’t really the guy’s fault, but Tony Stark did tend to get into all sorts of trouble, just like his father. The latest debacle was just another in a long list of things that had gone wrong today. And Phil had more bad news for his boss.

Fury was on the line though, so Phil would wait to break it to him. Let Maria get chewed out first. Phil wondered what she was doing. She usually answered on the first ring, and this delay was not going to get her points with the boss.

“ _This is Hill,_ ” Maria’s clipped tone came through the speaker at last.

“You getting the news?”

There was a momentary pause. “ _The news, sir?_ ”

Fury sighed, and elaborated. “Tony Stark. Iron Man.”

“ _Oh. Um. Yes. That’s…quite the news, and very inconvenient._ ”

“Tell me something I  _don’t know_. We have a breach of security here.”

“ _Sir, with all due respect…there’s no way to find where the leak originated. You’re looking at everyone above Level 7._ ”

“There is a mole in  _my organization_ , Hill. I want it found  _yesterday_. I don’t care how you do it.”

There was silence at the other end of the line. Phil imagined that he could see Maria’s  _I can’t believe I’m putting up with this crap_  face.

“ _…I’ll see what can be done._ ”

“You do that. And Hill, don’t leave your cell behind on your coffee breaks.”

“ _Yes, sir._ ”

The boss turned to him at last, raising the one eyebrow not covered by the patch. “You’re gonna stand there all day, soldier?”

“I was just waiting for you, boss,” Phil replied innocently.

Fury huffed. “Why do I have a feeling you’re about to make my day worse?”

Phil let his calm facade melt away. “Sorry, boss.” He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a small flash drive, and handed it to the Director. “Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff, and the STRIKE team just returned.”

Fury studied the drive with a solemn expression. In that small little stick was all the data on the _Lemurian Star_ , and they had gone to great lengths to retrieve it.

“Was the mission a success?”

“Mostly,” Phil said carefully.

Fury’s laser beam of an eye landed on him.

“The Captain’s mission was successful,” Phil explained. “Agent Romanoff’s…not as much. She retrieved the data, but the Captain found out.”

Fury’s mouth turned down. “And let me guess, he’s not happy.”

“No. He’s not happy at all.” Phil paused. “There’s something else. I took the drive straight here. The techs haven’t seen it, but Romanoff said that there was something weird happening during the download. She can probably shed more light on it in the debriefing.”

Fury’s one eye seemed to look right through him. Phil knew that his boss’ mind was turning, trying to think through the implications.

“Anything else?” he finally said.

“Just one more thing.” Phil gave him an apologetic smile. “Stark’s secretary—ah, Pepper Potts—she called earlier. My personal cell. She said that you should expect a call from him in about…” Phil looked at his watch. “Oh, about now.”

On cue, the line on the desk started to ring. Fury pressed the ignore button with an almost vicious jab.

“You couldn’t have told me sooner?”

“I thought you’d want to know about the mission first.”

From Fury’s pocket came a buzzing sound. The Director pulled out his cell and gave Phil an irritated glare. “You’re dismissed.”

Phil gave a nod. “Good luck, boss.”

He wisely got out of the line of fire. Although…it was really a shame that he wouldn’t be able to witness the showdown. He darted out of the office just in time to hear Fury yell into the speaker.

“How the hell did you get this number? This is a secure line!”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment if you enjoyed, or if you have any thoughts or questions.


	7. Big Brother Is Watching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "When I went under, the world was at war. I wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost." - Steve Rogers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What. I updated in a week. I know. Don't get used to it.

Nicholas Fury was not a patient man. His job demanded the ability to make decisions on a dime—often hard, even cruel decisions—and when a few seconds can mean the difference between life or death, mission success or failure, patience was not a virtue.

But keeping a cool head was. He may not be a patient man, but he could play at being one.

He was not a nice man either. He had too many responsibilities to worry about being nice. The world was not a nice place, and you don’t win wars with niceness. No, you win wars with soldiers. Soldiers, and guns, and information.

But he tried for a façade sometimes. He may not be a nice man, but it was his job to know the way humans worked. He never studied psychology, but you don’t get to be the director of the largest intelligence agency in the world if you don’t know how people tick. Incentives, warnings, threats…it was his job to know how people responded to them, and to choose which one to use to get the results he wanted.

On his darker days he wondered if he’d ever notice the moment he descended into complete psychopathy…if he’d ever realize when the last vestiges of his humanity had finally been worn away. Sometimes he wondered if he wasn’t already a psychopath. Guilt was a luxury for him, something he could scarcely afford. A cool head and a sidearm were what he needed, not a bleeding heart. Compassion and kindness were lofty goals to aspire to, if he was not Director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

He knew that he was a manipulative bastard. He would never apologize for it, but a part of him held on to the hope that if he sometimes still felt guilt, then he was not yet too far gone. It would make his job easier if he didn’t have a heart, but as it was, a part of him had still somehow remained human even after all these years. But being human was dangerous. Showing that he cared was dangerous. So he took that part of himself and hid it out of sight, covered it up with a veneer made of short tempers and sharp words.

It was easier that way.

“I take it you’re calling about the leaked data?” he spoke into the phone in a flat voice.

“ _How’d you know?_ ” came the sarcastic reply. “ _Between keeping me out of servers and securing your files I figured you wouldn’t have time to watch the news._ ”

Tony Stark had been a handful during the few months he was an amnesiac. Now that he’d regained his memories he seemed to attract even more trouble.

“We’re looking into it. What you can know is that it’s not leaked from our network—”

“ _I’m well aware of that,_ ” the smirk in Stark’s voice was almost audible. “ _Moved your sensitive files to hard copies, did you? Smart, but you know that’s not gonna keep me out, right?_ ”

“For the last time, if you hack into our—”

“ _What are you gonna do, arrest me?_ ” Stark said flippantly. Nick knew that he was deliberately testing him. “ _Do some house cleaning first before you get on my case. What you can know is, Nick…if this is your doing, I’m not gonna take it lying down. I think you know more than most people that it’s not a good idea to piss me off._”

Oh, he knew all right. There were a handful of people in the world who could make him feel uneasy, and this man had made the top of that impressive list. At that moment he was violently reminded that the person on the other end of the line wasn’t even human.

“Is that a threat?” he asked, keeping his voice cool.

“ _You’re damn right it’s a threat._ ”

Pacify him or respond in kind? Which would get a better reaction? Nick discarded the latter immediately.

“I’d be the last person to tell you to trust me, but you should know better than this.”

“ _Then you don’t have anything to do with it?_ ”

“Would I compromise my own asset? Use that brilliant brain of yours a little. I keep secrets. I don’t spill them.”

There was a beat of silence on the other end. “ _Did you just…compliment me?_ ”

Nick rolled his single eye. “Your ego’s healthy enough without me feeding it. Now, you had a little chat with the Senator. Is your other identity compromised?”

“ _No. Stern doesn’t know._ ” Stark paused. “ _How many do, in S.H.I.E.L.D.?_ ”

“Most,” Nick replied. “Nebraska involved a lot of people, you understand.”

“ _Yeah, I know. I mean, how many know my name?_”

“Does that matter?”

“ _It matters._ ” Stark’s tone was dark. “ _I need to know._ ”

“It’s not on file. Officially, it’s myself, Coulson, and Hill.”

“ _And unofficially?_ ”

“There’s no telling,” Nick admitted. “We were a bit preoccupied that day.”

Stark was quiet on the other end. Nick wondered if he was remembering Justin Hammer, like he was.

“What about your brother?” he asked.

“ _He has nothing to do with this,_ ” Stark’s reply was immediate, sharp. “ _Don’t you dare imply—_ ”

“Suspecting people is my job, Stark,” Nick returned dispassionately. “You can’t honestly expect me to not be cautious, especially because of the timing.”

“ _He has nothing to do with this,_ ” Stark insisted.

“I’m glad you have so much faith in him. Look, Agent Hill is dealing with the breach. Just make sure you don’t blow up another city.”

“ _Hm. Worry about your own ass._ ”

Stark hung up without fanfare, and Nick squinted at the screen of his phone, irked. His respect for Stark’s secretary increased another tenfold. Pepper Potts must have the patience of a mountain, if she was willing to put up with this on a daily basis.

He was barely given a moment of peace. A few minutes later, Steve Rogers came pounding on his door.

Nick sighed. He was going to need some Tylenol, at this rate. “Send him in,” he told the computer.

The words barely left his mouth before the door opened, and Captain America stormed into his office at a furious pace.

“You just can’t stop yourself from lying, can you?”

Nick kept his face straight and his tone even. “I didn’t lie. Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours.”

“Which you didn’t feel obliged to share.” Rogers wasn’t taking any crap, apparently.

“I’m not obliged to do anything.”

The Captain glared at him.

“Those hostages could’ve died, Nick.”

“I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn’t happen,” Nick returned cooly.

“Soldiers trust each other,” Rogers said in hard voice. “That’s what makes it an army. Not a bunch of guys running around shooting guns.”

“The last time I trusted someone, I lost an eye.” Nick stared at him with his single eye to prove his point, but he changed his tone to something more placating. Rogers was easier to handle, but that didn’t mean he was any less stubborn than Stark. “Look, I didn’t want you doing anything you weren’t comfortable with. Agent Romanoff is comfortable with everything.”

“I can’t lead a mission when the people I’m leading have missions of their own.”

“It’s called compartmentalization. Nobody spills the secrets because nobody knows them all.”

“Except you,” Rogers said with enough acid in his tone to melt through the desk between them. The Captain obviously thought he was being patronizing—which he was, Nick had to admit. He straightened. May as well patronize him even further.

“You’re wrong about me. I do share. I’m nice like that.”

He turned to leave his office without waiting to see if Rogers would follow. The Captain did, of course. The elevator doors opened, and for a moment the bright view of the city through glass made it seemed as if they had just stepped outside.

“Insight Bay.”

“ _Captain Rogers does not have clearance for Project Insight,_ ” the automated female voice intoned.

“Director override. Fury, Nicholas J.”

“ _Confirmed._ ”

They descended in silence, and Nick watched as the floor numbers decreased rapidly.

Rogers stood to his right and leaned against the handrail mounted on the side of the elevator. “You know, they used to play music.”

“Yeah. My grandfather operated one of these things for forty years.” If the Captain was in a nostalgic mood, he’d indulge him a little. “My granddad worked in a nice building. Got good tips. He’d walk home every night, roll of ones stuffed in his lunch bag. He’d say ‘Hi,’ people would say ‘Hi’ back. Time went on, neighborhood got rougher. He’d say ‘Hi,’ they’d say, ‘Keep on steppin’.’ Granddad got to gripping that lunch bag a little tighter.”

“Did he ever get mugged?”

Nick chuckled. “Every week some punk would say, ‘What’s in the bag?’”

“What did he do?”

“He’d show ‘em. A bunch of crumpled ones and a loaded 0.22 Magnum.” The light cut out abruptly. They were in the ground. “Granddad loved people, but he didn’t trust them very much.”

Nick let his smirk fade as the vast underground bay came into view, and the Captain turned, eyes widening at the sight of the massive helicarriers.

“Yeah, I know. They’re a little bit bigger than a 0.22.”

The project was in the final phase—the construction had all been finished, and now all that was left were the safety checks and tests. Support crews in neon-orange vests were guiding cranes to lower jet fighters onto the runways. Workers in uniform maneuvered them into position. They walked past engineers, various personnel moving equipment, agents carrying reports and briefcases.

“This is Project Insight,” Nick told the Captain, who followed close behind him. “Three next generation helicarriers synced to a network of targeting satellites.”

“Launched from the  _Lemurian Star_ ,” Rogers said in realization.

“Once we get them in the air they never need to come down. Continuous suborbital flight, courtesy of our new repulsor engines.”

“Stark?”

“Who else? His tech is the best, but don’t tell him I said that.”

They stepped onto a moving platform to get a more up close look at the new toys.

“These new long range precision guns can eliminate a thousand hostiles a minute. The satellites can read a terrorist’s DNA before he steps outside his spider hole. We’re gonna neutralize a lot of threats before they even happen.”

The shocked look had faded from the Captain’s eyes, but his normally open face now seemed to be carved from stone.

“I thought the punishment usually came after the crime.”

Nick shook his head. “We can’t afford to wait that long.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Given recent events, the World Security Council is convinced that we need an advancement in threat analysis,” Nick explained as he looked up at the underbelly of one of the carriers. “For once, we’re way ahead of the curve.”

Rogers was not impressed. “By holding a gun to everyone on Earth and calling it protection.”

“You know, I read those SSR files,” Nick turned on him instead. “‘Greatest Generation’? You guys did some nasty stuff.”

Rogers met him without flinching. “Yeah, we compromised. Sometimes in ways that made us not sleep so well. But we did it so that people could be free.” He gestured at the three behemoths behind him. “This isn’t freedom, this is fear.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. takes the world as it is, not as we’d like it to be,” Nick took a step closer to him. “It’s getting damn near past time for you to get with that program, Cap.”

The Captain was unmoved. The blue of his eyes seemed to have retained the frost of the Arctic. “Don’t hold your breath.”

Then he turned and stalked off.

Nick watched as Rogers’ back retreated from his limited sight. He dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out the flash drive that they’d gone to so much trouble to retrieve. He stared down at the small object, then clenched his hand into a fist around it. The Captain was too naive, too set in his ways and inflexible in his thinking. In times like these his age really showed.

Freedom and Liberty. America had been founded on that, but now…these were notions that impeded progress. The balance had always been between freedom and security—where one gains, the other loses, and in an increasingly dangerous world he knew which one would go. It was not a nice idea, but it was the truth.

Nick Fury was not a nice man, and he was not naive, but that part of him that was still human reared its ugly head. Steve Rogers had awakened the troublesome thing, and now he had to deal with it. He breathed in, and tried to reconstruct his cracking mask of professional psychopathy…

…to no avail. He sighed to himself and decided that he really needed that Tylenol. As much as the Captain’s words weighed on his conscience, the anomaly that Romanoff had reported lingered on his mind. You don’t win wars by being nice, but you certainly don’t win them by being stupid.

He pocketed the drive and returned to the elevator.

“World Security Council.”

“ _Confirmed._ ”

The Captain may be a little too old fashioned, but Nick had always been fond of old fashioned things.

* * *

_“It’s a horrible feeling when you start questioning everything you’ve done.”_

Steve remembered Peggy’s soft voice when he last saw her, how her hands felt in his large ones—bony and leathery, the grip weakened with age. How, despite the frailness of her body, she still commanded a presence of strength—the honey-brown of her eyes sharp with intelligence, the gray of her hair as steel. Seventy years. She’d joked that he hadn’t changed a bit, but he could say the same for her.

But it was impossible not to change in such a long time. He’d joined S.H.I.E.L.D. thinking that he could still help protect the world, and he’d felt honored to be a part of Peggy’s legacy. A soldier was what he was, and it seemed like he’d barely known anything else, so the decision had been easy at the time, almost natural. Peggy’s happiness for him had been real, but whenever he brought up S.H.I.E.L.D. she always seemed to tire quickly, and less of her smiles reached her eyes.

He’d brushed off her melancholy last time, trying to cheer her up, but now…

…now he had a good idea what weighed on her mind. She probably hadn’t known about Project Insight, but it didn’t matter. The world had changed, and they’d all changed with it. He was beginning to realize that more and more. It was chilling to know that very soon, they could all be living under the barrel of a gun, and most people wouldn’t even realize it.

Get with the program, Cap. It’s all in the name of protecting people. He scoffed. And they called him naive.

The world had changed. Did it change for the better? Steve couldn’t tell anymore. Had he changed? He laid his hand on his chest, feeling where his heart faithfully pounded out its steady rhythm. The ghost of Erskine’s finger tickled his skin. If he had, where it mattered, then maybe the world was better off without Captain America.

He pulled on his civilian clothes and folded his uniform neatly into his locker. Debrief was over, and he had no intention of staying at HQ any longer. He was getting a bit peckish, as well. Tony had said to meet him for dinner later, but he could do with a snack before then. His metabolism would burn right through it anyway.

The engine of his motorcycle hummed beneath him. The vibrations in the handles felt reassure in his grip. He left the Triskelion behind, mindlessly scanning the streets as he debated internally whether to go to a burger joint or a pizza parlor. He stopped at a red. Just ahead, the tip of the Washington Monument peeked out over the trees. The sight of it suddenly reminded him of his morning run.

He decided on a detour. He pulled to the curb and fished out his phone.

_Now, how did Natasha say to do this?_

“Get directions to the VA,” he said into the speaker.

The phone ignored him.

“Get directions to Veterans Affairs,” he said again, more clearly and loudly.

Nothing happened.

“Pretty sure it’s this button…” he muttered as he frowned at the phone and tapped at it some more. This new technology still baffled him. He supposed that being able to call up directions on a phone was pretty handy, but sometimes he just wished for a good, solid map on paper.

“You looking for the VA?” asked a young fellow holding an advertisement sign next to him. Steve nodded, and the young man pointed to the right of the intersection. “Two blocks that way, then make a left. It’s the brownish building on the corner.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem, man.”

Steve followed the directions and found himself at his destination five minutes later. He decided that no matter how smart they made computers and phones, humans would still have them beat every time. He’d keep this thought to himself, though. There would be no end of debates with Tony otherwise.

The VA was a nondescript, brown and beige block of concrete. The inside was more welcoming, and the young lady at the front desk gave him a friendly smile as he entered. “Can I help you?”

“Yeah. I’m looking for a Sam Wilson.”

“Oh. He’s in the upstairs foyer. Are you here for the support group? I’m afraid it’s about to end soon.”

“The support group?”

“Yeah, it’s for former service members who are having trouble adjusting to civilian life, but active members are welcome too.”

“When does it end?”

“In about ten minutes. You can sit in on a session if you like.”

“Okay. Thank you, ma’am.”

“Anytime.”

He found his way up the stairs, and as he neared he heard the quiet voice of a woman speaking. The hallway opened up to a spacious area where twenty or so veterans sat in rows of fold-up chairs. Sam was behind the podium.

“The thing is, I think it’s getting worse. A cop pulled me over last week. He thought I was drunk.”

So Sam worked here as a counselor for veterans. He hadn’t been specific earlier this morning, but now their brief chat made a lot more sense. Steve leaned against a wooden pillar and listened. Maybe he could get something out of this as well.

The room was quiet as the woman continued, “I swerved to miss a plastic bag. I thought it was an IED.”

He knew the feeling. While going for a run the other day, he’d flung himself behind cover after hearing a loud noise as he went by a construction site. He’d thought someone had shot at him, and only realized that it was a nail gun when a passerby had stopped to ask him if he was okay.

Steve closed his eyes and breathed. If he let himself, he could almost hear the gunfire. He could almost feel the heat of explosions, smell the smoke in the air as he ran through mine-filled forests with his shield raised and his Howling Commandos a step behind him. The first weeks after waking up had been especially bad, but even now the memories still threatened to overwhelm him if he wasn’t careful.

It wasn’t just his bed. He knew that Sam was the same. Everyone in this room was the same. He couldn’t forget. He could never forget.

“Some stuff you leave there,” he heard Sam say. “Other stuff you bring back. It’s our job to figure out how to carry it. Is it gonna be in a big suitcase, or in a little man-purse? It’s up to you.”

 _Up to me, huh?_  Steve wondered how he’d be categorized. He doubted that there was a big enough suitcase to fit all of his baggage.

When the meeting ended, he waited until Sam finished with everyone who wanted a word with him before walking over. Sam’s eyes landed on him as he went to straighten out a small table.

“Look who it is—the running man,” Sam quipped with a light smile.

“Caught the last few minutes,” Steve said by way of greeting. “It’s pretty intense.”

“Yeah, brother, we all got the same problems.” Sam picked up some brochures, stacked them together, and put them back in the basket. “Guilt. Regret.” There was an old pain in his eyes.

“You lose someone?” Steve asked.

Sam hesitated for a moment before he speaking quietly. “My wingman, Riley. Flying a night mission, standard PJ rescue op, nothing we hadn’t done a thousand times before, ‘til an RPG knocked Riley’s dumb ass out of the sky.” He looked away. “Nothing I could do. It’s like I was up there just to watch.”

The memory of Bucky falling down a snow-covered ravine hit him like the icy waters of the Arctic. His jaws clenched.

“I’m sorry.”

“After that, I had really hard time finding a reason for being over there, you know?” Sam continued, the slightest of frowns between his brows.

Steve gestured at the basket. “But you’re happy now, back in the world?”

Sam’s expression cleared. “Hey, the number of people giving me orders is down to about…” he made a show of looking around “…zero. So, hell yeah.” He smiled at Steve. “You thinking about getting out?”

“No,” Steve said immediately, shaking his head. But then he paused, and he thought of Peggy, and he thought of the three monsters waiting to rise from beneath the Triskelion. “I don’t know. To be honest, I don’t know what I would do with myself if I did.”

Sam leaned to one side, eyebrows rising. “Ultimate fighting?”

Steve burst out laughing.

“It’s just a great idea off the top of my head,” Sam grinned back at him. “But seriously, you could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?”

Good question. Steve wasn’t sure how to answer, so he went with the truth. “I don’t know.”

Sam studied him for a moment, his grin fading to a considering smile. “Well, you still have a team. That’s all you need, really. To stay in. If it’s your calling.” He turned and began walking, and Steve followed him. “But it’s okay to find another one. I did. That’s the beauty of our lives. You don’t have to be stuck doing one thing.” He winked.

Steve found his heart lighten. It was hard not to be cheered by this guy. He still couldn’t imagine himself doing anything else, but he let himself wonder, just for a moment…if he could do whatever he wanted…if he didn’t have the responsibilities of being Captain America, if he could just be normal, like everyone else…

“I suppose I always wanted to be an artist.”

“There you go,” Sam grinned. “Now, what brings you here?”

Steve raised his brows. “I’m here to make you look awesome in front of the girl at the front desk.”

Sam’s laugh echoed all the way down the hallway.

* * *

Steve barely made it on time to meet Tony for dinner, but he arrived at Ben’s Chili Bowl with his mood almost restored to before the mission. Sam Wilson was a good man, a better conversationalist, and a fan of the Avengers to boot. Normally he eschewed meeting with fans because he found that they tended to do or say weird and sometimes very disturbing things, but Sam acted casually around him. He didn’t treat him like a celebrity. In fact, he didn’t even ask for an autograph.

Steve gave it to him anyway.

“Wow. What’s got you in a good mood?” Tony asked upon seeing him.

“Met a fan,” Steve said with a smile.

“Really? You hate dealing with them.”

“Not this one.”

Sam was a comrade. A fellow soldier. Someone who understood. He wasn’t just a fan—he was a brother.

Steve sat down at their table, a corner spot in the bright little eatery. “I wasn’t expecting chili for dinner.”

“Well, Phil’s been raving about this place. Pepper’s not coming, by the way. The board is panicking about our stocks so she’s off to babysit them. I’m getting take-outs for her. I haven’t ordered yet. What do you want? They got hot dogs, burgers…”

“Burger sounds good.”

“Burger it is. But I think I’ll get a hot dog with mine too.”

The burgers were absolutely fantastic. Eating them was a messy business, and Steve unwittingly burned himself with the steaming chili dripping from the buns. But he was too hungry to be bothered, and his serum-enhanced healing took care of his tongue almost instantly. He’d ordered two to start with, but he quickly decided that he’d need a third. Or maybe swap that with a hot dog, because Tony’s looked delicious.

It was when Tony took out more than half of his chili-smothered hot dog in one bite that Steve suddenly remembered.

“Hey, aren’t you not supposed to need food anymore?” 

“An’ mish out on thish?” Tony said with his mouth full. He swallowed mightily. “I might not  _need_  to eat, Steve, but I  _want_  to.” He then drained half of his jumbo-sized coke in five seconds. “This. This is the best part about being human.” He pointed in warning. “Don’t take that from me.”

Steve chuckled. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

He ate as Tony’s motormouth ran on and on about the hearing. He was ranting, and Steve listened and let him pour out his frustrations. He frowned a little when Tony described his confrontation with the Senator.

“You think it’s S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“I talked to Fury. He denies that he was involved,” Tony shrugged.

Steve scoffed. “He denies everything.”

“Mm,” Tony agreed. “I don’t think he would, though. It’s inconvenient for him too.” He squinted at Steve. “Did something happen?”

“You could say that,” Steve said. He hesitated for a moment, because this was not a good place to talk about classified government projects, but he decided that he really didn’t care right now. “You ever heard of Project Insight?”

Tony frowned. “That does sound familiar. Oh yes,” he snapped his fingers, “I remember now.”

“You knew about it and never told me?” Steve sat back, feeling a bit betrayed. Was he the last in the loop for everything?

“Hey, I didn’t know you didn’t know. This was back when I was all messed up in the head. Are they finished? All of them?” He leaned forward eagerly.

Steve did not like Tony’s excitement. “Do you know what they’re supposed to be used for?”

Tony put his hands up. “I just design stuff, Steve. In fact, they only asked me to improve on the engines. I figured they could switch to repulsor technology. But I wouldn’t mind going behind the firewalls again.” He frowned at him. “You think something’s up?”

“No. I don’t know. I just know I don’t like it.” Steve shook his head. “We’ll talk about this later. This isn’t the place. You should be worrying about yourself. Now that people know about Iron Man—”

“I’ve got it handled, don’t worry,” Tony waved his hand.

“But it sounds like somebody’s got it in for you. We’ve all made enemies. Now they’ll know where to aim their guns.”

“Let them try,” Tony gave him a smirk, and his eyes glinted dangerously. “Archangel here, remember?”

He could never forget, but that didn’t mean he worried any less. “You’re not a hundred percent.”

“Still more than they can handle,” Tony replied confidently. He gave Steve a clap on the shoulder. “Plus, we’ve got back-up. And I doubt anything as bad as last time is gonna come up again. It’ll be fine.”

Steve only hoped so, because sometimes their luck was the worst.

They were all finished. The small table was now littered with brown-stained napkins and globs of chili dripping off their plates. Steve leaned back in his seat, feeling full and content. Come what may, this was life at its best—a full stomach, and a friend by his side.

“Are you going back to Malibu in the morning?”

“Nah,” Tony was licking the last of the chili off his plate, heedless of the disgusted looks of the table next to them. “I’m going to be in D.C. for another day at least. I have a lunch appointment.”

“Oh. With who?”

“You might have heard of her. Rumiko Fujikawa.”

“Ohh,” Steve sat up straighter. “That new CEO, right? I read about her in uh…this block thing. On the Internet.”

“Blog,” Tony corrected. “And yeah. She’s somewhat of an up-and-comer. But our meeting isn’t strictly business.” He hesitated. “I mentioned that I went to see my sibling, right?”

Steve gaped. He remembered, back on Asgard—

“Raphael? She’s Raphael?”

Tony nodded. “Yeah. I meant to keep in contact with her, but…you know…with the whole amnesia thing…”

“So she called to check up on you.” Steve frowned slightly. “Bit late, though.”

Tony winced. “Well, actually she sent me an email, and I never replied. And when she called earlier today she…uh…”

“Wasn’t very happy?” Steve asked dryly.

“She tore me a new one.”

Steve laughed. “Someone who can tear an Archangel a new one. I gotta meet this girl.”

“Well, she was my older sibling…”

“So she’s another Archangel?” Steve leaned in, interest piqued.

“Was,” Tony said, a bit of melancholy seeping into his voice. “She’s human now.”

“How does that work, anyway?”

“She died, like I did,” Tony said simply.

“Oh,” Steve said dumbly. He could never get used to the way Tony talked about it so casually. “But you’re an angel still.”

“Wasn’t always an angel. Best I can tell, when our Dad dropped us here, instead of giving us our Grace back He gave us human souls.”

“But…that’s what I’m saying…you’ve got your Grace, even though you were human.”

“Yeah. Hers is nowhere to be found. Believe me, I looked.”

Steve left it at that. What little that Gabriel was willing to share about his family was always fascinating. Unfortunately, it was almost always confusing.

“What about you?” Tony asked as he wiped his mouth with a napkin. “You gonna stay in D.C.?”

He had planned to. He was just going to stay at headquarters, but now that he knew what was underneath the Triskelion, the thought gave him the shivers. He didn’t really have anywhere else to go though. His home was…well, his home was with the team now. With Tony.

“I guess I am. I was planning on going back with you.”

Tony gave him a thoughtful glance. Sometimes, Steve really hated his ability to look at a person and  _know_ , even though Tony said he never did it to them.

“Tell you what,” Tony dropped his soiled napkin back onto his plate. “How’s about I call Joel to give you a ride home?”

“You don’t have to. I don’t want to be a bother.”

“It’s not a bother. He won’t mind,” Tony said. “I think,” he added.

Steve raised a brow. “You don’t sound too sure.”

“He’ll probably be annoyed,” Tony admitted, “but annoyed is his default mode, so what the hell, I don’t care.”

Steve gave a half-grimace. “You know, you should probably not give him any more reasons to hate us.”

“Don’t be melodramatic. He doesn’t hate you.”

No. He was just indifferent. Aloof. Utterly disinterested in their existence. But Steve kept his thoughts to himself, and he kept his eyes from meeting Tony’s. He hoped Tony kept to his promise of not looking through people’s heads, because his brother certainly had no compunction of doing just that.

Joel appeared the moment they stepped outside Ben’s. “You called?”

“Hey bro,” Tony gave him a nod. “How goes the hunt?”

“I have retrieved all that can easily be found,” Joel replied, and for an instant Steve thought that he looked  _exhausted_. He blinked, wondering if he’d imagined it. “Do you wish me to return them to you?”

“No, no,” Tony said hastily. “Let’s wait until I finish business here. I don’t think I’ll be able to walk for a week if you did it now, and I still have to stay somewhat ambulatory.”

“Very well. Is that all?”

“Oh, Cap here needs a ride back home. Mind giving him a lift?”

Steve didn’t even have time to give Tony a “see you later” before he found himself abruptly in the living room in Malibu. The afternoon sun streamed in from the windows, and he blinked at the sudden brightness.

On the couch, Clint gave a frustrated exclamation. “Damn it! You ruined my kill streak!” He glared at them. “There are doors for a reason, you know.”

“Good to see you too,” Steve told him dryly as he shook off the mild disorientation of moving across three time zones in an instant.

“How was the mission?”

“I’ll tell you later. Thanks,” he said to Joel.

“You’re welcome.” The angel turned from them.

“Wait,” Steve said quickly. “You’re leaving?”

“Yes.” Joel looked back at him. “Do you still require transportation?”

“No, it’s not that…” Steve trailed off.

He’d seen it, back at the diner, and he saw it now—the way Joel’s movements were just a little stiffer than usual, as if he had trouble moving his limbs.

“You know, you can stay if you’re tired.”

Clint paused his game and looked up. Joel said nothing in reply, and Steve tried again.

“Why don’t you stay for the night? We’ve hardly seen you around at all.”

The angel was silent, but Steve saw it—the same weariness he’d seen on Sam’s face, on the veterans’ faces…on his own, in the mirror, when he was alone and the memories became too much. He saw it now on Joel’s face, and he understood. Joel was a soldier, the same as he was.

“You said you found all the easy ones. That’s as good a time as any to take a break. Come on. Even angels need to rest.”

Joel said nothing, and he did not move. He just looked at him in that intense way he always used on people.

“Don’t push it, Cap,” Clint said.

Steve gave a sigh. He wanted to help, because Joel was like him. They were soldiers, and they gave everything to the fight because that was what they do, but if they didn’t find shelter from the war from time to time, every one of them would eventually break.

He wondered just what sort of war Joel thought he was in. He wanted to help Joel the way Sam had helped him, but he couldn’t really do much if the angel wouldn’t let him.

But when he settled down next to Clint, he found that Joel had followed suit. Steve glanced at him, surprised.

“You’re staying, then?”

“Yes,” Joel said. He looked over at Clint, mildly curious. “What are you doing?”

Clint seemed a bit taken off guard. “Um. I’m playing  _Shadow of Mordor_ ,” he said as he fumbled with the controller. “It’s a video game based on  _Lord of the Rings_ —” he cut himself off. “Uh, I guess you probably don’t know about that, either.”

“No.”

“Well, it was first a book, and then it was turned into a movie. Three movies. They’re really good. Tony has them over there…”

Steve found a smile making its way onto his face. He had already seen all three movies (and the Hobbit ones) and read the books. It had been one of the first things the team had included in his education on modern popular culture, and it was during one of their marathons that he had first felt truly at home with the Avengers.

This was life at its best—sitting here, with a friend on one side, and perhaps a future friend on the other. The ice had taken almost everyone he knew from him, but he’d found new ones, new comrades, new…family.

It didn’t make the loss hurt any less, but he had people who cared about him to keep the cold at bay. Come what may, he had people to remind him that he wasn’t alone. He looked over at Joel, who sat listening attentively as Clint described Middle Earth. He hoped that they could do the same for this angel.

It was three hours later—when dinner time came around for the West Coast—that he remembered he’d left his bike at Ben’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characterization is hard. I hope I did Fury justice, because he's such a cool character on screen. And Steve. I re-watched _The Winter Soldier_ just for this chapter, trying to get inside these characters' heads. I hope I've succeeded.
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the comments.


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